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Yet government space travel is dead, and private space travel (SpaceX) is booming. So there's that. Just because it doesn't happen on your timeline doesn't mean private is inferior to government. It means private is waiting for it to be financially feasible. Which if the government did things that way, we wouldn't be $136 trillion dollars in debt.

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Private space travel funded by government contracts.

> Private space travel funded by government contracts.

So, just like the 60s. Per Wikipedia:

The Apollo Command and Service Module was built by North American Aviation (now part of Boeing) and the Lunar Module by Grumman (now Northrop Grumman) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_(spacecraft)). The Saturn V was build by Boeing, North American, and Douglas (the latter two now part of Boeing) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V).

The Saturn V wasn't called The Boeing Falcon, and Von Braun didn't work for Boeing.

One could easily imagine the incentive for private initiative in the field of space travel.

But fundamental research on a huge scale is something that governments are axiomatically the best supporters of. Let's not drink the Ayn Rand Amazing Kool-Aid here.

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