innocent I find it sad that people are excited about throwing away a valuable part of NASA so that corporations can swoop in and take over for profits. No part of the space business should be connected to profits or share holders.
Every part of the space program since its beginning has private contractors involved who bid for projects. Their quotes ALWAYS include a healthy profit. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, ISS, and SLS were massively expensive because of that. The contractors did not do it out of the goodness of their heart and the government buracracy overseeing them is also very expensive.
Pushing it to commercial builds where NASA buys the service is almost always cheaper for NASA and less profit for the contractors. It's why NASA chose to buy cargo and crew launch services from commercial providers, it was cheaper. SpaceX makes it profitable through reusability (not throwing multimillion dollar boosters in the ocean every launch saves money) and high volume. NASA saves money using SpaceX over using bespoke builds just for them, ULA, Boeing, Ariane, and other launch providers.
NASA had already decided to end the ISS in 2030 and has been funding development efforts by commercial entities to launch their own LEO space stations.
NASA is supposed to be a research and development agency, encouraging and conducting science. Not a bus or hotel provider.
