Because - especially lately - it was borne of the government, done by the government, for the government...
Article mentions several space pioneers and astronauts, including Elon Musk, Paul Allen and Jeff Greason.
FTA: A Reusable Spaceplane Prize would solve this problem. As Mr. Gingrich pointed out in a speech last month, in the 1920s and 1930s entrepreneurs like Bill Boeing, Glen Martin, Donald Douglas, Jack Northrop and the Wright brothers — with some help from the U.S. government — created the greatest aviation industry on this planet. America is still the home of the entrepreneur, and we now have space-travel pioneers like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Robert Bigelow, Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and Jeff Greason.
For example, Jeff Greason is doing work for SpaceX which was founded by Elon Musk, with the money from sale of PayPal - which he co-founded with Peter Tiel (original investor in Facebook) - to eBay. (Elon Musk is also a founder of Tesla Motors, but that's another story.)
SpaceX is a private space/rocket company, involved in manned and unmanned space missions such as tourism, cargo, laboratory, commercial haul and delivery (from/to ISS) etc., with launching and landing sites in CA, TX, FL and sea / ocean platforms.
SpaceX rockets are designed to be modular, 95% reusable, much lighter and cheaper to launch and land than NASA shuttle. Almost 50% of SpaceX revenue currently comes from NASA, but the projects are fixed-cost, i.e., any delays or overruns come at the expense of SpaceX, not the taxpayer. The rest of revenue is from commercial and scientific projects, including non-US non-military entities.
Most of research, technology, materials, production and testing are state-of-the-art and done in-house, little is outsourced.
Check out Dragon / Falcon-9 rockets, with some modules nearly ready for human delivery.
Other space companies include Virgin Galactic, brainchild of Richard Branson (UK), which are looking for certain joint ventures with SpaceX and other companies. It's not a pipe dream, it's happening; most people just don't know about it because it's not seen in pop-media or at NASA, it's happening outside and around them. U.S. government should encourage these developments, and unshackle these companies, not stand in the way or burden them with undue regulations, just because something didn't come out of NASA or other government agency.
Gingrich not only understands it (which, in itself, is unusual for conventional politician), but is willing to talk about these aspirations and needs, while keeping in mind the cost-benefit of venture.
Unlike most politicians, Newt is willing to share this vision, only to be subjected to ridicule by his opponents (like Mitt Romney, the "safety-net Mr. Fix-it") or the brain-dead media, liberal and "conservative" alike. Nice to have a candidate with a vision, and who doesn't think that all good things can come from government, and government only.
To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, Liberalism and bureaucracy are hobgoblins of little minds.
I agree that the U.S. government should encourage spaceflight R&D and not burden them with undue regulations. Most, if not all, advances in space R&D came from the private sector, funded by NASA and DoD.