Another lingering Clinton legacy.
Clinton line-item vetoed out the DC-X and the Clementine II projects primarily because they would have enabled a real space-based ballistic missile defense to be built more than a decade ago.
As a bonus we would have had reliable, inexpensive access to space for whatever missions (NASA, DoD and commercial) we wished.
Now we stuck having to rely on the Russians to continue access the space station and paying through the nose to launch anything into space.