What we need is a concerted effort to reduce the cost of any flight into space to no more than the cost to fly from LA to Atlanta. Government either can't or won't do this. We need a new group of people and companies willing to push the very edge of what we know, not a bunch pf bureaucrats interested in protecting their turf.
I agree completely. NASA long ago fulfilled it's mision, and ought to be phased out as commercial space businesses come on line. I think part of the reason people like Burt Rutan are so successful is that they do not have to support an enormous overhead in Union Labor, Gubment Beaurocracy, etc. I don't know actual numbers, but I'll bet that NASA's personnel costs are just astronomical.