[RadioAstronomer]

The amateurs will have trouble beating NASA's costs to orbit or anywhere beyond. For their manned sounding rocket mission they can because NASA has neglected that niche.

Also for all of those NASA bashers out there, the amateurs have access to billions of dollars worth of data, engineering, and technology that came out of NASA.

[RightWhale]

We do, tons of materials science research has been done. Just the studies of how to weld exotic metals is a good start. Even with that, it will still cost serious $ to build and operate an amateur orbital mission.