Another lingering Clinton legacy.
Clinton line-item vetoed out the DC-X and the Clementine II projects primarily because they would have enabled a real space-based ballistic missile defense to be built more than a decade ago.
As a bonus we would have had reliable, inexpensive access to space for whatever missions (NASA, DoD and commercial) we wished.
Now we stuck having to rely on the Russians to continue access the space station and paying through the nose to launch anything into space.
I had met Pete Conrad at the time he was working on this.
He really had high hopes for it.
Well who knows, maybe something went deep black out of it and went to good use somewhere.
Bigelow Aerospace
Expandable modules initially were proposed and designed by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the Transhab program. After cancellation of the Transhab program, Bigelow Aerospace entered into three Space Act agreements whereby Bigelow Aerospace is the sole commercializer of several of NASA's key expandable module technologies.
And after the Georgia debacle, we see how easily the Russians could cut off access to the ISS or use it as a political weapon along with energy supplies to Europe to further its territorial ambitions.