[fatdog789]

It only costs a few hundred thousand dollars to launch a few satellites. Deep space telescopes do cost less than a luxury airliner. (The Dreamliner and Airbus Monsterplane both cost in excess of $250M/per -- and that doesn't include customizations). We have NASA to thank for that -- without a government agency willing to shell out hundreds of billions of dollars on research, this sort of stuff would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per launch.

NASA also isn't the space police. It is the space bureaucracy, and the space experts agency, primarily because the private sector didn't care enough about space to do any of this stuff itself.

NASA exists because of the failure of the private sector.

But prizes are a good idea -- it's more than time for the private sector to get into the game.

[wlievens]

While you're right, you're talking about the past 40 years. I think the post parent is talking about the next 40 years.