These days, it's sure true.
A long time ago, perhaps, there was no commercial incentive to compel business interests toward space--that was when a government program was truly important to space exploration. Even then, it would have gone nowhere if it had not been convenient to politics and relevant to the development of better ways to toss thermonuclear warheads at the USSR. We often forget why the US government was so concerned with the development of rockets and high-altitude jets. The threat of war is a pretty compelling reason to put a lot of elbow-grease into something, and perhaps we take for granted how important an animus that was to American science and engineering in the "space age".
Now there are plenty of commercial incentives for business in space--chiefly communications, but that's just the beginning now that we have this idea that anybody who has the money really can just put stuff in space--while, having no particularly apparent or tangible political or military reason to do new and interesting things in space--sure, perhaps they will arise in a decade or two--NASA finds it safer to play with their cubicle decorations and toss around Powerpoint presentations for things they're never going to build than to take such risks as are inherent in breaking new ground.
Armstrong remembers the NASA that had something to compel it to get things done, because that was the NASA he worked for. I'm sure he misses it dearly, but that NASA is gone and all that's left is a rigid, risk-averse, self-licking lollipop.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
