NASA is a large Federal bureaucracy which has evolved as do all bureaucracies in that it exists to preserve itself first. To do that it must have a good image and product, and it will engage in PR first, product second.

It also has a long history of more or less successfully lobbying Congress. NASA is probably more guilty than the politicians for the debacle which has been the Space Shuttle, less guilty for the ISS. However, those were both oversold products which has funded the bureaucracy for years.

Private exploration is also dependent upon product, then PR. And will proceed into the more difficult phases only with Federal funding or by limiting NASA competition, or both. There isn't much of a private demand for an asteroid mission, for instance, or visiting Mercury. And that sort of thing isn't as sexy to private investors as the Moon, or offer as much of a return as LEO.

I believe NASA will promote the privatization of space more speedily if it can get some good PR and funding for itself by doing so. It might be by funnelling "prizes" through itself to private industry, or maybe bypurchasing more complete hardware than it does now from private sources. I believe that space will evolve into something like Boeing, which has a private side subsidized by Federal work, which is ostensibly bid but in reality time and materials, with profit and overhead added.

Any way it goes, I believe the NASA lobby can be counted upon to take care of itself.

Arf