Talk politics.

I wouldn't imagine it would reduce too much. I'm not convinced that the private sector would do things cheaper than NASA, but even if they did, there's only so much "waste" that quite possibly the most efficient government department in the USA would be able to do away with. You still need a metric fucktonne of rocket fuel. That virgin galactic thing is still twice as far from the ISS as it is to Earth.

I haven't heard of the vacuum tubes thing. Sounds like the world's biggest amp :P