Prepare for Liftoff, Esther Dyson, Foreign Policy

"The U.S. Defense Department may have created the Internet, but had it kept control of the technology, it's unlikely the Web would have become the vibrant public resource it is today. That credit goes to the investment and activity of private citizens and private companies, starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s. With Barack Obama's new spending proposals, the same sort of thing could happen to space travel and exploration."

Space: The Final Frontier of Profit?, Peter Diamandis, Wall Street Journal

"Government agencies have dominated space exploration for three decades. But in a new plan unveiled in President Barack Obama's 2011 budget earlier this month, a new player has taken center stage: American capitalism and entrepreneurship. The plan lays the foundation for the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us."