I overheard some high-temperature semiconductor guys ("how do you build chips that work on venus / in engine blades / etc") at a NASA facility talking about budgets in a way that suggested a substantial part of their funding came from the launch vehicle budget.

I don't have good intuition for how much of the bloat comes from a top-heavy organization, from grifting contractors, and from good old fashion boondoggles -- but I'd like to add to this pile of possibilities the possibility the categories are poorly drawn and that "things which NASA should be doing but shouldn't be classified under launch vehicles" are nevertheless classified under launch vehicles.