“I’d like for us to get to the point where we have the kind of private/public synergy in space flight that we have had for a hundred years in aviation,” Griffin said. The spirit of private enterprise is crucial to the future of space exploration, he acknowledged. “I see a day in the not-very-distant future where instead of NASA buying a vehicle, we buy a ticket for our astronauts to ride to low Earth orbit, or a bill of lading for a cargo delivery to space station by a private operator. I want us to get to that point.”

That’s a pretty fast turnaround for an outfit that went from can do to can’t fail to why bother.