I’m certainly not against NASA’s spending money on offering competitive prizes, but I believe the money would be better spent on them if offered by an independent prize-offering authority like that described at http://www.ProSpace.org . NASA has an inherent conflict of interest to preserve its MONOPOLY so it makes prizes that can’t be won in hopes of continuing with the miniscule amount that it offers for these prizes from its exorbitant budget. NASA is no more risk-taking than my granny was. We’ve been going around in circles on the Shuttle for decades while the Russians can do space stations and launches 30 times more cheaply, and without casualties off the ground in nearly 4 decades (whereas NASA keeps having them). We won’t be able to repay our national debt and finance the wasteful social security and other programs imposed on us if we don’t start pushing the envelope in space. NASA bureaucrats do not deserve our trust any longer.
My opinion is that your making a very poor argument and are factually off base in several major areas.