NASA

I am a HUGE proponent of space exploration. I would love to see a massive effort to get human beings (preferably Americans) living on the moon in a large scale way within the next 25 years, and beginning to colonize Mars in the next 50 years.

But technology and the industries surrounding aerospace have matured so well in the last 50+ years and I do not believe that the federal government should be having to foot the bill to make those goals happen.

Perhaps if our financial house was in order as a country and our debt wasn’t so high, I would say we could afford to have a government-run interplanetary transportation company, but our financial house is NOT in order as you know, and we just cannot afford the luxury of footing the bill to get people from point A to point B in space.

NASA definitely has a critical place and role in the world to play with regard to those efforts, but to me it has to continue to be more of a facilitator with a regulatory role, and keep its focus on research and scientific experiments and results.

Let private companies like SpaceX keep focusing on the mechanics of getting to and from space, and if they can make money on that via tourism eventually then good for them!