Moving astronauts to low earth orbit via Rocket was a wild new technology…in the 1960s. Even the Space Shuttle was a new idea…in the 80s. But now NASA is considering dropping back to older tech with simple multi-stage rockets. Is this a good use of the Space R&D arm of the government? (Granted, even the new rockets will have some new tech. But that is not quite the same thing.)
So, there has been talk of outsourcing some of those functions to the private sector. Then use the savings to shoot for projects that are more abitious. Good idea? I imagine the devil is in the details.