I am not holding my breath for NASA. NASA does some really great stuff, but they are beholden to politicians, and most politicians have no vision; and our political system rarely can support any kind of sustained effort to accomplish something that would span multiple administrations. Politicians appeal to fickle public sentiment, but space exploration needs long term commitment, even in the face of multiple failures; and the average person does not share the vision that is required. The average person cannot imagine beyond what they know.

On top of that, NASA relies on a small group of aerospace contractors to propose designs, and those contractors are entirely preoccupied with extracting as much money as possible from the government. So instead of, for example, proposing a single flexible system that can go to the Moon or to Mars, they propose a complex set of systems, each with a specific mission — because that drives up the cost.

We need a visionary driving things — like Wernher von Braun — someone who can define how it will all work, and then ask for bids; or someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos who will drive things forward with personal oversight to get it done as sensibly as possible.