Amen to that, sir.

You are right when you say that growth was before Obama. Personally, I am just an aerospace engineer so when I see a company creating new jobs I assume growth. Two friends of mine work at SpaceX and have told me that the company is preparing to expand greatly. I am no legal mind nor an economist so I won't pretend to understand the micro or macro economics of it, if you have more experience on this subject I will have to be humble. However I still believe that the space industry is booming and that reigning in NASA was a good decision. This will become a very lucrative industry for America's future.

Haha yeah somehow I don't think a speech like that would have taken him very far.

That wasn't the debate, I wasn't even quoting anything Obama had said. He merely went off on a tangent as opposed to discussing the up and coming space industry.

It's funny that is the exact argument my libertarian friend made a few weeks ago when the Falcon 9 reached orbit, I can see the point of view, we need enough freedom in the market for competition but not so much that it leads to corruption as Mike_O_FL made just below. Finding that balance has been a game this country has been playing for generations now.

The policy of awarding the contracts originally intended for NASA to private companies would help. If you truly believe this administration has hindered private space growth how do you explain the expansion of SpaceX or Bigelow Aerospace constructing a spaceport on Wallops Island? How do you feel the administration could better help the industry aside from cutting more taxes?

I'd like to think that we could've had an interesting debate, but if you'd rather not even try then I suppose that is your right.

I'm just as surprised as you are, I thought this would be the place to find a large number of people agreeing with this pro-competition plan but maybe people can't get over their political affiliations.

I can agree with most of that but I feel you underestimate the impact a limited NASA makes on commercial space flight. NASA suddenly becomes a large customer for the private space community what with astronaut transport to the ISS. With competition these COTS companies are finding much cheaper methods of space travel to compete for big contracts as opposed to NASA dragging their feet.

I never said that I believed everything he said, you have contributed absolutely nothing to the conversation.