AS much as I like the idea of returning to the moon, I'm not sure that should be the highest priority now. If a sustainable and managable way of getting to low earth orbit could first be achieved it could open up so much.

The Apollo program was basically designed to go to the moon in the short term, even if the systems were minimally capable and the platform was too expensive to keep up for a major earth-moon transit system.

I don't see why that sort of thing would help us to do again. The US has lost a huge amount of satellite launch business and right now the international space station is barely holding onto it's capabilities with the progress and Soyuz missions.

How much could be done if launches could some day be so inexpensive every graduate student could have a chance at getting their small experiment flown? or if a scientists experiment failed due to equipment malfunction they would not loose their one shot to fly it and have t wait decades for another chance?

Or if satellites could be launched at a low enough price that satellite phone service or mobile broadband could become more affordable? Or if students, ham radio operators could aford more launches? Or if satellites could be built more cheaply, because it was not so critical that they work for a long time reliably due to the enourmous cost of their launch?

Okay... i guess this would probably be something that a space plane program is likely to achieve, especially in the short term.

But that's really what I personally have always thought Nasa's imediate priority should be: accessable space.

Airline-like is probably not reasonable or possible in the foreseeable future. But even if it were on par with sr-71 flights, that would open the doors to a lot!