Comment the dream has passed (Score 1) 145
NASA had a vision in the 1980s to become "the trucking company of space", which is akin to the idea of weekly launches. They hired expensive consultants to help them prepare for that future. They ran into at least two brick walls. One was the lack of funding. The second was a culture of being risk averse. The Atlantis crash was used by the risk averse to force the culture everywhere. NASA is now coasting on its resources and is a small shadow of its original dream - being only an occasional developer and launcher of small science probes.
The future of space will be created by corporate development and launch organizations. They will bring a higher risk tolerance to ventures. Some accidents will happen, just as in the early days of air flight. But the flip side is that much more progress will be made, as we have seen from the results of competition in the airplane industry as it developed over the past 80+ years. Some cluster of corporate ventures will eventually produce weekly launches. NASA will not be a party to them. Their dream has passed. Corporations will compete for success and resources, and pass by NASA's shadow.