I think that we’re far better off letting private industry (read: “SpaceX”) get us into space. Let NASA buy the space from them, as they are far ahead of everyone in developing reliable heavy-lift rockets that can be reused (which is the ONLY way to make it even close to economically feasible). Does the government build aircraft anymore? Nope, it contracts out the work to private industry. We ought to follow that example.
When did the government ever build aircraft?
Who built (builds) the Atlas rockets?
Who built the Titan rockets?
Who built the Saturn rockets?
Who built (builds) the Delta rockets?
uh...it contracted all the previous NASA work too...from Mercury to Apollo to the shuttle!