As with so many federal agencies, NASA started out with a noble mission and over time evolved into a sluggish bureaucracy. And now, sadly, it's spending too much of its time and budget indulging in politics.

As a result, it's constantly being outdone by smaller and innovative private space ventures in places like Brazil, Russia, China, and, yes, even the United States.

The American private sector already has shown it can do a better and more cost-effective job of delivering passengers, cargo, satellites and science labs into space. In fact, NASA has awarded numerous contracts to private space contractors like SpaceX and Space Exploration Technologies, but still insists on clinging to its mono-poly command position.

To regain America's competitive space edge, the United States should fold NASA and — using far less costly tax incentives — aid and allow private entrepreneurs to fill the void.

NASA and America's giant defense contractors — savvy D.C. players like Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — strenuously object to anything that would end the cozy bidding arrangements that guarantee billions of dollars of little-scrutinized cost overruns each year.

Every time a public-spirited citizen suggests there might be a better way, their lobbying brigades fan out across Capitol Hill button-holing lawmakers and promising millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

While NASA's successes in space have shriveled in recent years, it has spent inordinate amounts of time and money promoting off-mission causes.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion and the third anniversary of the break-up of the space shuttle Columbia over Texas. Yet NASA insists on putting more lives at risk by continuing to launch these 31-year-old jalopies into space while it spends billions more to develop a safe new vehicle.

The space shuttle's successor, branded the Crew Exploration Vehicle, has been dubbed Apollo on steroids by excited NASA managers, which ought to give taxpayers pause. It won't be ready for flight until at least 2010. It appears that NASA's forward thrust, once again, is back to the future.

Congress should end this travesty and turn over space to the private sector where success is the key ingredient because there are shareholders who care about the bottom line.

The talented NASA engineers and scientists who have served honorably and brought glory to America for the past few decades undoubtedly can find better-paying jobs and more intellectual rewards as well in the private sector.

Private space enterprises can fly us to the moon and eventually lodge us in luxury hotels on Mars. NASA — continuing to suffer from tired blood and myopic vision — will only disappoint us and waste our tax dollars.

Eric Peters is an automotive columnist for The Army Times and The Navy Times.