Can you enlighten me about when NASA stopped doing things? I got the impression that NASA has 'always' used companies to build things for them. I'm quite cynical so I assume it's always been an tax->government->industry funding process.
I'm not American but it was my impression they stopped the space shuttle program for so long because it wasn't cost effective and they instead partnered with private enterprises for those use cases?
NASA has always paid someone for launch. In the past they owned the IP. Now they don't. They have their own rocket and it costs only 2 billion dollars to launch