While NASA struggles with the financial burdens of completing the space station, flying the shuttle through 2010, and developing the Orion capsule and Ares launcher family, it has little interest in supporting the emerging commercial NewSpace industry, as seen with the small budgets of its COTS and Centennial Challenges programs.  Congress happily supports this status quo, mindful of the NASA and contractor jobs spread across Congressional districts.

Meanwhile, NewSpace entrepreneurs work steadily to build commercial sub-orbital space vehicles and orbiting facilities, and several state governments are working to bring NewSpace-enabled economic growth to their citizens.  If you think I'm talking about the traditional space states of Alabama, California, Florida and Texas... think again.  Wrap your mind around the idea of Wisconsin, Hawaii, Virginia, Oklahoma and New Mexico as potential newcomers to the list of significant space states.  Yes, you read correctly, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin
Wisconsin... a space state?  Consider the following excerpts from the "Business Plan for the Great Lakes Aerospace Science & Education Center at Spaceport Sheboygan," dated January 2007:

• "The Federal Aviation Administration/Military Operations Area restricted air space R-6903 off of the Wisconsin shoreline from Manitowoc to Port Washington has historically been used for inert air-to-air and air-to-surface delivery, defensive countermeasures training, and sonar buoy drops
• In 1996, Sheboygan's South Pier became the first inland sub-orbital launch site with the inaugural Rockets for Schools event
• Currently, the city of Sheboygan holds a certificate of site approval from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the future construction of a public spaceport - Spaceport Sheboygan.  Developers of a permanent Spaceport within the restricted portal area are in the process of creating a development plan.
• On April 14, 2006, Governor Doyle signed the Wisconsin Aerospace Authority (WAA) Bill to create the WAA.  This bill will help position Wisconsin in the aerospace and commercial space travel industry, ..."

The first stage of this project is the development of GLASEC, the Great Lakes Aerospace Science & Education Center intended to open in May 2009.

Hawaii
On June 7, 2007, Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii signed into law the bill that established PISCES, the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems.  This is a collaborative project of the Japan-US Science, Technology & Space Applications Program, Hawaii's Dept. of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Virginia
On April 4, 2007, the state legislature passed the Space Flight Liability and Immunity Act to encourage commercial use of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island.

Oklahoma
The licensed Oklahoma Spaceport is part of the Federal Aviation Administration's National Airspace System and has established a protected Reusable Launch Vehicle flight corridor.  Rocketplane is set to begin test flights of its commercial sub-orbital vehicle later this decade.  Armadillo Aerospace has been using the spaceport for flight testing of its lunar lander hardware.

New Mexico
State and local governments continue their efforts to raise funds to build Spaceport America, the potential future US base of operations for Virgin Galactic and site of the first successful commercial launch by UP Aerospace on April 28, 2007.

These states demonstrate the de-evolution of space from a Federally-owned-and-operated domain concerned primarily with national political goals and space exploration to the more fundamental concern of economic development... which will ultimately serve the same national political goals and space exploration.