Nice little strawman there. Too bad the USSR actually did some pretty awesome things too. I mean they went to space before anybody else did. And when the US did finally catch up and win the space race- it was by COPYING the way the USSR did it with a huge and massive government program.

There are, in fact, some things government does better than the private sector. The privat sector didn't even become a factor in space exploration until this century and even now they are solely able to exist there because of government as a customer - there just aren't enough private sector business to keep those expensive enterprises afloat. Take away NASA, the ESA etc. and there's no such thing as DSTV or GPS. 

There are many things best left to the private sector. But there are some things - the private sector should never be allowed within a trillion galaxies off. Water is one of them.