Why not, if NASA outsources 100% of the actual operations? Find reasonable contractors (for certain values of "reasonable" that would match SpaceX), give them attainable goals, provide the money, provide publicity, and otherwise stand back and do not interfere. For extra credit, provide some scientific mission spacecraft and rovers, the things NASA us actually quite good at.

Key bureaucratic feat: keep Boeing away.

18 months is really tight though, realistically it should be twice as much maybe.

Realistically it takes us “10 years” to repair a bridge in this country nowadays, so I’m not sure what the multiplier should be. And no, Boeing cannot be “kept away” from a fat government contract like this one. Nor can all the other usual suspects

It takes 10 years to have the bridge repaired not because the actual fixing takes 10 years, right?

I don't think you're reasoning is actually sound here.

Nasa doesn't have the capability today, but that does not mean that the capabilities that they are building for tomorrow are "batshit Insanity". This is a very silly take.

Building capability is not insanity. Expecting to land people on the moon in 18 months when you don’t have half the components already available for testing, however, is. Read the article. It’s long, but worth a read.

>NASA still can’t take humans to/from orbit on its own

They can buy seats on Crew Dragon though?

This has been well known for years, it's just NASA operating for decades with it's hand tied behind it's back by neoliberal mandated public private partnerships embezzling it for tax dollars.

> NASA still can’t take humans to/from orbit on its own.

NASA funded the capsules that SpaceX (and Boeing, rather less successfully) built so they wouldn't have to.

The leap of logic that requires this means NASA didn't take humans to the Moon either.

Grumman built the Apollo Lunar Module (lunar lander).

Also Boeing, North American and Douglas built the Saturn V.