See, the government's never really going to organize a project that will send a man to the Moon, are they? Course not. Just a huge, bloated bureaucracy that's going to waste billions of dollars of the taxpayer's money without achieving a goddamn thing. The only way to do it is to have a smart, unscrupulous entrepreneur, who's determined to make it happen and is willing to bend a few rules to get there. Trust me, the profit motive is more powerful than you think.
Well, having worked at NASA, I must admit that Heinlein got some of it right. But his crystal ball seems to have fogged up at the key moment.