This is why it's got to happen...
Government bureaucracies and the ill-informed public are the only alternatives. Private enterprise will do nothing until they can find a way to make a return on their investment. When and if that day comes, both the public and the government will become irrelevant.
There may be one other alternative. Let the government fund it, and free enterprise build it, but let the universities and academics plan it and run it. This is how big-ticket science is done with particle accelerators and observatories. Come to think of it, most science in space has been done this way, and it has been quite successful.