space race for the 21st century

a little over 40 years ago, america landed men on the moon and they walked around. yet since then, we've returned a couple times in the years immediately following then no more. the saturn v rockets used by the apollo programs were technological marvels. apparently much more marvelous than even originally envisioned by von braun. most of us have cell phones and our cell phones are probably 1000x more powerful than the computers on board those rockets and even any computers used in designing them. we now have programs where we can design and test structural loads as well as aerodynamics on the computer without a need to build costly mockup models to test every new change and variation. (i believe boeing 777 was the first large plane designed this way.) so my real question then is why are they saying we'll need at least another decade to reach the moon again and are now doubting being able to even hit that target?
i think part of the problem is that it's a government program. although space flight was first dreamed up by private citizens such as tsiolkovsky and jules vernes and robert goddard was interested in rocketry, it wasn't until state involvement that it ever really took off (no pun intended). consequently, for the last 80 years or so, basically all major space activity has been government-funded.
but that needs to change. nasa should take a step back and reorganize. in light of the increasing budgetary pressures here in america, i don't think it would be a bad idea to have nasa take a less active role in the space program's development and operation. there now exist several private companies with capacity to lift decent payloads to varying degrees of orbit at what is becoming more and more of a bargain price. so instead of developing another lifter, nasa should simply shift to developing the payload. maybe they could guarantee a set number of launches purchased per year. or they could simply put out a list of scheduled stuff to be launched and then take bids on getting it all up. now granted i know most of the satellites today were actually not launched as payload on the space shuttle. but given the cost of the space shuttle and current advances in robotics, many things could be automated in space. (i bet astronauts weren't worried about job security because of robots lol.) that of course could also free up money to better fund human space flight to moon, mars and beyond.
but there's also another consideration. that would be international cooperation. despite apollo 11 being an american mission, we insisted it was for all mankind. and there's such things as international space station. so space flight can also be funded by partner countries. yes, icbms and satellites can be launched on the same rockets. but that needn't scare us so much that we limit ourselves in partners for space flight and exploration. india recently launched a probe to the moon, china recently orbited a manned spacecraft, and even iran has put a satellite successfully in orbit. and all this is in addition to the traditional spacefaring countries of the us (and japan) and russia and the consortium of european countries. so clearly, a little more collaboration, a little less politicking, and we could drastically lower the cost to develop and further advance space flight and access.
anyway, leave me messages, comments. if we all think together, maybe we can get more done.