It was a great idea for everyone who made that decision. Not so great for the two NASA astronauts, who are workers.

It seems to me that we've only been talking about privatized spaceflight for the last ten or fifteen years. It makes me wonder why, because NASA for example has never manufactured anything of its own, it's a project manager and a research facility. It was always a part of the MIC, yet another means to get government funds into the hands of private capitalists. Many NASA projects only got off the ground because there was a military/intelligence application, and/or because some MIC capitalist stood to benefit greatly.

I think the best part about alienating Russia and China with regards to space exploration is that the US has unilaterally declared a new space race to the moon, and China is going to get there first even though they're not playing along with that silly game. It's also telling that China has opened their programs to collaboration with anyone, whereas the US has made it illegal to collaborate with China on space topics.