By Bob McDonald, host of the CBC science radio program Quirks & Quarks

If you're looking for a great lawn ornament for your science museum, NASA is offering two space shuttle orbiters for sale. They'll even deliver. Just make sure you look at the fine print on the contract. The delivery charge is $28 million and that's just to a nearby airport. At the same time, the Obama Administration is forcing NASA to re-think the way it does business, including scrapping plans to return to the Moon.

The three remaining space shuttles are due to be retired by the end of this year, so NASA is offering them up to worthy museums which can afford to transport them atop a specially modified 747. The extraordinary cost of moving something the size of a small airliner is symbolic of the entire shuttle program. They are outrageously expensive to fly, whether it's in space or on Earth.

Back in the 70s, they were promised to be the cheap way to space, but after two of them exploded in flight, taking 14 lives, and after countless retrofits and rebuilds, every flight of the shuttle now costs about $1.5 billion. Granted, they are the most complex machines to ever fly and have accomplished amazing feats in space, but they demonstrate how NASA has turned into a cumbersome organization that spends a lot of money to go nowhere. No private transportation company could ever operate that way.

That's why President Obama is handing over the job of space flight to the private sector and abandoning the unaffordable goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020. This is exactly what happened to the aviation industry after the Second World War. During the war, aircraft manufacturers were churning out four-engined bombers, each with a short life expectancy and virtually no budget constraints.  Afterwards, those same companies replaced the bomb bays with luggage compartments and gunner turrets with soft seats and windows. The airline industry was born once aviation was taken out of government hands. Today, flying is cheaper and just about anyone can do it.

Several private companies are poised to take over the job of sending people to space.  At the front of the line is Space-X and its Falcon 9 rocket, already sitting on a launch pad in Florida.  It's set to fly this year with the goal of providing transportation for astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

Second in line is Virgin Galactic, which unveiled its Spaceship Two, which will be carrying tourists on sub-orbital flights out of New Mexico within a couple of years.  These, along with a slew of other rocket companies, show that the private sector is ready to take over space flight to make it cheaper and more accessible. This transition away from government should be straightforward, since rocket technology is now 50 years old.

Of course, this leaves the U.S. astronauts with nothing to fly. In the short term, they'll be hitching rides to the Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz capsules.  Who would have thought, 50 years ago, that that would ever happen? When the private rockets are proven safe and reliable, they can ride those and if times get really tough, they can take a seat beside the Chinese, who are very determined to be the next on the Moon.

So where does this leave NASA?

In fact, they will have a lot of money on hand once the shuttles stop flying. That cash would be best spent doing what NASA was originally designed to do: push the frontiers of space flight. We've already been to the Moon and the Space Station is almost complete, so let's move on to better ways of going places: plasma rockets, solar sails, magnetic propulsion, even warp drive. Let the government agency take the risks while the private sector follows along later and turns it into a profitable business. It's worked in other forms of transportation; it could work in space.

The year 2019 will be the 50th anniversary of the first human footprints on the Moon. It will be interesting to see who makes it back to Tranquility Base to celebrate that event. It may not be Americans and they probably won't get there on NASA rockets. That's a sad statement for the people who pioneered Moon travel.

On the other hand, NASA has an opportunity to develop the technology to make the next giant leap onto Mars and beyond.  ENGAGE!