Honestly, with everything going on today in America (War on Terror for one thing) I doubt the current or future presidents are going to give NASA the funding they need to 'revamp' and make a new kind of NASA. This means more tragedies are bound to happen... but like many other people, I myself would step onto a space shuttle tomorrow if they would let me
That being said, I believe business will start to push more toward space then NASA in the near future. Satellites are probably the biggest thing they do in space right now, but imagine if factories could be built in space? Suddenly weight is not so much of an energy issue as it is on earth. Or heaven forbid we find a rare and useful material on a planet or an asteroid... we could possibly see another 'gold' rush in our lifetime
