When one takes into account the thousands of engineers and scientists NASA maintains, the thousands of contractors at Lockheed Martin, United Space Alliance, Boeing, etc. that it hires, the multiple centers and facilities it owns or rents across the country, the ground stations, ships, and satellites, all of which support multiple programs including but not limited to the most visible Space Shuttle Program and the Constellation Program which will replace it, then NASA’s budget indeed is restricted.
You say you hate waste, and yet your only evidence is a satellite which broke down after functioning four times longer than it was planned. There have been two major accidents in the history of the space program, which is pretty damned good considering how incredibly dangerous space flight is, despite the many many precautions taken. What specific areas do you consider wasteful? Maybe you can get help from Dangermouse. He is a pilot and js familiar with the aerospace industry, made the same claim about NASA’s wastefulness, and yet when I challenged him he couldn’t come up with anything specific.
If you want to believe there is a guy at Mission Ops with a joystick controlling the MGS who turned it in the wrong direction, that’s fine. That is not how satellites are controlled, nor was it the finding of the investigation team that one individual was responsible for the mishap. However, I know it’s easier to make cheap remarks than to understand the process, so more power to ya 