I think that when you are 64 you no longer need an excuse to be snarky. [if snark it was]

Bigelow has launched NO man-rated
orbital spacehab yet.
And even if he did within the next five years, there’s no guarantee
any astronaut will get a ride there.

Burt Rutan’s SS2 is Suborbital, MAYBE it will carry passengers to a 100 km altitude sometime in the next three years, if VG is lucky. (Don’t hold your breath!); and being suborbital it
won’t go anywhere near the Moon.

SpaceX?
Mr. Musk achieved a remarkable accomplishment last year, I grant him that, but could you tell me when his Dragon will carry astronauts to one of Bigelow’s spacehabs? And assuming it happens this decade, does it guarantee that
SpaceX will cram some humans into a Lunar Dragon next decade and send them looping around that orb?
That’s assuming it will happen the next decade; a big assumption.
It’s just as likely that SpaceX could go bankrupt this decade; and so can Mr. Bigelow.
HEY! Those things do happen!

On the Government side it’s not all NASA’s fault! They have to do what ever the government tells them to do,
depending which President is in power, which Congress is willing to fund a project for more than 4 years.
Remember GHW Bush’s grand plans in 1989? announcing the desire to send NASA back to the Moon, on to Mars?
Congress didn’t give one penny to that proposal.

OK! What about Free Enterprise?
Has it done any better?

Where’s Zubrin’s plans to send men to Mars? It’s been 30 years, I’m still waiting.

What about Roton? (project died).

What about Armadillo Aerospace’s
plans to send up humans into space?
(12 years, still waiting)

What about SpaceX and its ‘cheap’
and frequent access to LEO?
There maybe only one SpaceX launch this year, if they are lucky.

What about Virgin Galactic and its ‘promise’ to send tourists into space “this year?” (PLEEEZE!! If Richard Branson makes another promise that goes down the toilet…)

What about InterOrbital Services
and its plans to use modular rockets to put payloads, and then humans, into LEO?

They made promises as far back as
2000. (are they a fraud? or simply incompetents?)

What about Escalibur Almaz?
(that’s a bad joke)

Nuff said.

Now the United States could have waited around for private enterprise to make ICBMs, and sold them to the highest bidder as TBs philosophy would propose. Could have even waited for private enterprise to make nuclear bombs to go on the top of them. Again, sell those to the highest bidder.

And we could have waited until some private company planted their corporate flag on the Moon. They would, of course, then own it. (But they would expect the US government to protect their investment from encroachment.)

Most think that would be a bad idea.

If it’s a money-losing proposition, the government funds it. If there’s a chance at a return, you get the private folks funding it, using technology developed by the public funding.

It really is that simple. The interface between when and how the government turns over all the technology to private companies is kinda tricky.

Sure TB, nothing you ever bring up is ideological, it’s just “common sense” but every comment anyone else makes is thoroughly vetted for political correctness and quickly slammed if it doesn’t meet with your approval. Almost every other post you make on this forum is either an attack on those you view as statists and Socialists, or some snark supposed to illustrate how their insidious evil is infiltrating our society, whether it be how corrupt NASA is or how difficult it is to get a business licence in San Francisco.

The point is that you use this forum to push your political agenda, and punish even the slightest deviation from it from anyone else. You are a partisan propagandist.

Like I said, I can’t stop you from being one, but I can see to it you don’t think you’re getting away with it. And I can see to it that anyone else who might be visiting here who sees it knows your political superstitions are not automatically accepted by the space community.

That you have an agenda, or what it is, is irrelevant. The fact you insist on inflicting it on us, is.

That statement isn’t “ideology.” That’s an unpleasant fact, and a lot of people working for NASA aren’t any happier about it than I am.

You’d think the Ares/Orion/SLS (“Senate Launch System) fiascos would have driven the point home by now.

As far as snarky is concerned…

“NASA isn’t about space transportation, and the Shuttle wasn’t about low-cost reusability.

“In government programs, “expensive” and “time-consuming” are virtues, not flaws. The ideal NASA development program is one that lasts decades and pumps billions into Congressional districts. Whether anything useful comes out the other end is almost beside the point.”

Clear enough for you? At least, the last sentence of your post was ideologically neutral.

Perhaps I misinterpreted this comment as being snarkier than it was. Can you clarify?

The government space programs may have been expensive, and directed for political profit instead of private, but they have robotically explored every planet in the solar system, and conducted many other purely scientific and exploratory missions which I’m sure would never have been undertaken otherwise.

However, it is important to point out that even though there is no way we can stop you from peddling your political spam on Space/Science, we can still make sure you understand your efforts to do so have been recognized for exactly what they are.