Thanks for that link. Relative to the story, this would also bring up examples of companies like Armadillo Aerospace and the other small-scale space startups. O

Thanks for that link. Relative to the story, this would also bring up examples of companies like Armadillo Aerospace and the other small-scale space startups. One thing that you might argue the space startups are not necessarily doing that NASA is doing is scientific research outside of spaceflight-related topics. General Fusion (the company in mnemonicsloth's link) would seem to be a sort of hybrid of these two extremes.. though extremely risky business-wise.