That's true, but it may be a necessary step at this point in time. Think of it this way; when it came to ships back in the day and going to other countries, you had to pay a private ship, either a shipping or passenger vessel, for passage. The government may have done some regulating/taxing but the actual expeditions that involved most of the common people were done by private shipping companies.
I can easily see private industry making all the necessary advancements to go off-planet, then the government coming in and bringing their own cheaper, tax-payer funded means piggy backing off the technology that has been developed.
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