".....That is why I urge that we reject any major humans-in-space initiative that does not have the prerequisite goal of much cheaper (at least by a factor of ten) access to space."
To which Rand says:
"He has identified the fundamental flaw in NASA's approach. Of course, it's nothing that many of us haven't been saying for years (that's what the Space Access Society is all about, after all), but it's nice to hear it from him as well."
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/010247.html

I would say that NASA is incapable of creating cheaper access to space- other than in the sense of encouraging the private sector to do this. Or perhaps a more modest request: NASA should stop doing stuff that inhibits the private sector from lowering the cost. And to some degree NASA has been encouraging the private sector in this way.
Rather than reject any major humans-in-space initiative, Congress and the President should continue to focus on current program of cheaply going to the Moon and beyond. In addition they should direct further involvement by other branches of govt towards potential involvement with space development.

As I've said before, the main thing needed to open the space frontier is markets in space. Governmental involvement in space development should be focus on ways of encouraging markets in Space.
The main current market in Space has to do with location. Whether in LEO or GEO space gives one high ground- which allows global communication, observation, etc. Space will always provide this valuable aspect and this need of this important "resource" will not lessen over time, but will increase over time.

Another "resource" of space will the "air space" of Near space. The billions of air flights which occur each year are plowing through a "relatively" thick atmosphere. The resistance of traveling thru this atmosphere at high speeds [500 mph] is a limiting factor to higher speed travel. An airplane travels by going 6-7 miles up in the air, and traveling hundreds to thousands of miles across the globe. Roughly 10-25% of fuel use by planes is getting 6-7 miles up. If aircraft could get high enough [20-40 miles up] much higher speeds would be possible. In suborbital travel most of the fuel used would be for take-off and getting to high altitude and then one could travel 5+ times faster with a fraction of air resistance.
At 100,000' [less than 20 miles] one has about 1/100th the atmosphere compared to sea level pressure. One is in an environment which is similar to Mars' "sea level" pressure. Whereas commercial airliners generally fly at level in which is about 1/3 of sea level pressure.
With suborbital travel one is probably going to traveling thru 1/200th or less of Earth's sea level pressure [roughly atmospheric pressure halves per 5.6 km {18,372'}, so about 120,000'].
So, again roughly 120,000' is 1/200th, 140,000' is 1/400th 160,000' is 1/800th, etc of sea level pressure. And 40 miles is 211,200'.
Using this Near space has barely begun, we are at 1903 and Kittyhawk, in regards to a market having to do with using this aspect of Space. Boiling it down to it's essentials, it probably will involve getting things going faster than 2000 mph at higher elevations than 20 miles up, and could use far less fuel/energy than is currently used by present airlines to move people or cargo hundreds to thousands of miles and at speeds making travel time 1/2 of less than at present [and 1/2 or less the cost]. It will start with stuff like SpaceShipOne, but what it will looks like in 20+ years may look more similar to this:

Or similar thing:

Another market is making energy in space- which will eventually get cheap enough to sell to Earthlings living on Earth's surface. But first, create energy sold in space to be used in space.

Use space environment to transmit energy- similar to existing market of satellites- so energy can produced somewhere on Earth, and power could shipped somewhere else on Earth [or in Space- or from Space].

Another market is water in space. There is a lot of water in Space. Mining water in Space, will develop a energy market in space and will create a rocket fuel market in Space. Once you have a rocket fuel market in space, other markets can open in space, and you will lower cost of getting anywhere in Space.