Keith Cowing tells it how it is . . .

Keith Cowing had an excellent article on a topic that is often
discussed he the "NASA being a part of the government is what makes
space expensive," myth:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=922

So often in this newsgroup I see otherwise knowledgeable people, most
of whom work(ed) in aerospace, none who worked at NASA, claiming that
it is NASA's structure and government origin that causes space
exploration to be extremely expensive. (This is accompanied by an
assertion that NASA is holding back progress in commercial space, and
that the commercial sector could do everything NASA does at half the
price...)

This article covers one tiny facet of the myth.

Tom Merkle