“Nah. Human spaceflight is just getting started. It probably will be led by private industry laterz.”
...as soon as someone comes up with another profitable and risk justifiable way to make money in space besides ‘tourism’.
And there is the rub! I am all for private/commercial Space Flight but the Governments of the world will not allow a private enterprise to establish a colony on the moon or a private space station. and until you have a destination, space tourism will not develop!
You might get a few to take a ride up and down but that is not gonna do the trick. We need look back to the days of the bi-planes and barn storming. Those pilots and plane owners did not get rich nor did the aviation industry make much money just giving people rides for the sake of the experience. It was not until planes started flying folks to a destination that the aviation industry exploded!
We need permanent Space stations (A real one not some hodgepodge structure for scientists) that are an embarkation point for the moon and beyond where folks can experience weightlessness and spend a few days or weeks just like a hotel on earth!
Then we need colonies on the moon and eventually Mars! Yep there are all sorts of barriers to overcome but we are not gonna overcome them by sitting around on earth waiting for it to happen, we need the government to establish the infrastructure then allow the private sector to make use of the new territory!