[RightWhale]

why can't private industry do it cheaper, faster and better?

Space development is too big for anyone acting alone. It must be a group effort. If private industry, if there is such a thing anymore, were able to develop space or just go to Mars, it would have done so by now.

$15 billion a year for 30 years? Where is our moon base? Where is our Mars base? Heads should roll.

[camle]

if you read the projections of the 60's, the moon base would become operational by 1975, the space station a few years earlier. politics and other things got in the way.

[kjam22]

$15 billion a year for 30 years? Where is our moon base? Where is our Mars base? Heads should roll.

Think if we had spent that money on curing cancer....