I see that now you're changing the subject.
Many things have held it up, but it was primarily held up by a) regulatory uncertainty and b) a false sense that it wasn't capable of doing the job, created by the high costs of the way NASA does things, which was an inhibitor to investment. That changed with a) the entry of wealthy investors such as Bob Bigelow, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen and others and b) the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004.
And am I the only one that finds it ironic that the success of so many commerical endeavors depends on NASA contracts?????
I find it ironic that you don't know the degree to which this is not true. SpaceX has a large commercial payload backlog, Bigelow has no NASA contracts, Blue Origin has no NASA contracts, Virgin Galactic and XCOR have none except the purchase of a few flights (out of the hundreds that they've pre-sold) for research.
SLS is going to take us beyond low earth orbit...
That's a fantasy. SLS doesn't have sufficient funding to ever fly, and if it did, it would needlessly cost billions per flight. That's according to NASA's own plans. There are no missions defined, and no funding for payloads for it, other than Orion, and Orion is capable of doing no more than going around the moon. We could be going beyond earth orbit, and soon, if we'd take the money being wasted on SLS and instead invest it in the hardware actually needed to get beyond earth orbit (e.g., landers, injection stages, fueling depots, tugs, large deep-space facilities, etc.). Note that the Tyson video that you think is so wonderful doesn't mention SLS. That's because he's smart enough to know it's irrelevant.
The only purpose of SLS is to maintain the Shuttle work force and keep certain congresspeople happy. It won't survive the coming budget cuts if Romney and Ryan are smart. I think they are.
Well then, why do you care at all what NASA does?
Commercial will deliver for you everything you want.
Who cares then?
NASA spending even if doubled or cancelled would matter not to the nation as far as fiscal concerns.
Why do you care what NASA does or does not do? Commmercial will be the great era for you.