public funds pay for services, even services you don't use nor are entitled too. the largest customers are governments for space travel now. the commercialization aims to shift that, shifting that also insulates the 'private companies' from large government budget swings. there are other US based rocket companies, SpaceX just won the bid. even NASA didn't build the original space proam machinery, it was contracted out, but those contractors were diverse aviation and industrial system companies. back then there was no practical thought of sending an everyman into space...ohh wait, I think that was Sally Ride, oops Christa Mcaullife was the teacher recruited as an astronaut, and might ve been a few others where NASA was trying to market the space program to the public so budgets didn't get cut doing science in space that has no monetization avenue at the time.