NASA is not only ignoring the potential of privatizing space programs, but has a history of actively trying to prevent it from happening. Whewn that wholly unexpected market for tourists to the ISS at $20 million per head developed two years ago, the aging Stalinists at NASA vainly tried to stop Tito from going. AFter all, even $20 million paid for a seat would not have cvered the cost of that seat on the Shuttle. When the Russians decided that $20 million would mean a tidy profit on their much cheaper Soyuz orbiters, NASA's response was to prohibit Tito from entering any "American" part of the station.
What Shuttle, as uneconomic as it may have been, did accomplish was give us thousands of hours of flight experience with hypersonic aircraft. It's tme for corporate taxpayers to use that technological experience to build a new generation of low-cost boosters.