It looks as if we truly are on the brink of going where no man has gone before. And if we're a few years late, no matter. We're still getting there.

In New Mexico, officials gathered recently for the groundbreaking ceremony for Spaceport America. This will be the headquarters for flights by Virgin Galactic, the British company which intends to offer suborbital spaceflights to paying tourists. Meanwhile, the private company Orbital Sciences Corp. found a subcontractor for the cargo modules it will use to supply the International Space Station.

The era we're talking about is one in which the federal government gets out of the space business and focuses on space exploration. Government is best at funding ventures so risky that private money won't flow there. Modern medicine and modern computers wouldn't be where they are without government investment in basic science. But there comes a point at which it's better for private companies to develop and deploy technologies because they're better at reducing costs and providing innovation which pleases customers.

NASA will return to rockets for its next generation of launch vehicles. They're tried and true, yet they're single-use, high-cost, specialized vehicles. The private contractors -Orbital Sciences and SpaceX - are developing smaller, cheaper, versatile rockets to supply the space station after the space shuttle fleet is retired in the next year or so. Virgin Galactic will fly totally reusable spaceships designed by a private company.

You may not have $200,000 for a Virgin Galactic flight, but other people do. They will fly, and others will fly, and the cost will drop. There will be space hotels (don't laugh, a concept drawing was part of an exhibit a few years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago), and eventually we'll have orbital factories producing products which can't be made in Earth's gravity. The first space wedding will be all over the news, and the second will draw barely a mention, and then Vegas will find competition from space casinos with zero-gravity shows. Don't laugh. Commercial satellite launches started in 1970, and that's now a $90 billion business.

Government can meanwhile focus on exploration. Mars is still out there, as is the prospect of a moon base, and there are other mysteries to be discovered which won't be discovered if we sit still.

The $18 billion which NASA gets is a pittance compared to the $700 billion we spend on defense or the $425 billion for Medicare, but we should spend each of those space dollars wisely. So we should let go of the toddler that is near-Earth space. It's time for our toddler to walk on her own and grow up.