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Who knows the best way to explore space—the government or the market?

To listen to President Obama, the answer is NASA. The U.S. government’s space agency remains a favorite of the political class, despite decades of disappointment, high costs, and low ambitions. Although Obama did end NASA’s 30-year-old shuttle program, he has maintained the agency’s US $19 billion budget (give or take a few hundred million) and reaffirmed its central position in space exploration.

The president’s policy is mistaken, because space exploration is inexorably democratizing.