Other companies would be funded to develop and operate teleoperated lunar ice harvesting operations based upon Astrobotic (or other’s) ice prospecting missions.

Although NASA wouldn’t be sending its own astronauts to set up these operations, as Bigelow, Shakleton, and others set up a permanently manned base to repair, maintain, and expand the lunar ice equipment, NASA astronauts could take the commercial transport to the base for science and surface experience in preparation for the eventual Mars mission.

LunarCOTS.com – Sign the petition
CisLunarOne.com – An example of the establishment of such a cis-lunar transportation system.

Are there elephants in the room of Wayne Hale’s world? Not.

What’s notable about the Falcon 9 is that with fully private funding it was able to be done for ca. $300 million for a 10 metric ton (mT) launcher. What’s notable about the Antares is the $472 million development cost covered both the 5 mT launcher and a pressurized capsule. And what’s extremely important here is that the government only had to fund $288 million of that for a 5 mT capable launcher.
With development costs this low, only a few hundred million dollars for fully private development or for the portion that has to be funded by a government, any industrialized country in the world can have its own, independent spaceflight program, no consortiums such as the ESA required.
That was the point I was making in my blog post. Then the success of NASA’s commercial spaceflight program should be trumpeted by them, not spoken of in hushed tones. It is the means by which we will finally achieved routine spaceflight.

Bob Clark

On the lasting importance of the SpaceX accomplishment, Page 3: towards European human spaceflight.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-lasting-importance-of-spacex.html

Bob Clark

Hopefully (with time) it will be the first operational manufacturing in space.