I would be surprised if the USA, as a nation-state, actually returns humans to low earth orbit on a vehicle it developed "the old fashioned way"; I told friends

I would be surprised if the USA, as a nation-state, actually returns humans to low earth orbit on a vehicle it developed "the old fashioned way"; I told friends that when the shuttle retired... an easy claim, but I did... no really. The private sector may well do something here and perhaps NASA will hitch rides from those private actors rather than the Russians (how much longer will that be a viable option anyway?) At the end of the day, you probably get probes sent out, but U.S. Government sponsored human spaceflight is on its last legs in my opinion... unless a direct military need comes to the fore, and even then robotic seems more likely. Note that I say all of this without any regard about my personal feelings about should NASA be involved in human spaceflight or not: those thoughts are not relevant to my observations/judgements on the state of affairs of such endeavor.