It’s not all that bad. The last paper Tony and I wrote outlined how SLS can be fit into a lunar return architecture, which includes depots in low Earth orbit and low lunar orbit, all within the existing budget. See here for details.

The rub comes when it comes to the money. How do we not give up anything while adding a real lunar return? Worse yet, how can we add an EML gateway like many advocate and build a government lander sized for the SLS not to mention ice-harvesting telerobots and a new surface habitat? There’s also talk now about extending the ISS to 2028. Something’s got to give.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have all gone through endless acquisition debacles due to a combination of factors. Though a comparatively tiny service I mention the Coast Guard because I was an eyewitness to their failures. Jobs in congressional districts and jobs for retired military officers and profits from defense corporations poured into re-election campaigns all contribute to literally billions being squandered on cold war toys and programs that turn out to be worthless. No hyperbole: that is the continuing reality. Not such a juggernaut.

The public sees very little of these problems and believes our military is mighty and perfected. Not true at all. Sadly, to criticize the military is to be instantly branded a traitor when the truth is…the truth is what is needed. In regards to NASA the Shuttle train wreck is more of the same. How anything requiring such effort could be so fundamentally flawed and have gone so wrong, gone nowhere, and no lessons even learned is…amazing.

NewSpace is essentially a cheaper nastier hobbyist version of the space shuttle concept that space flight can be remade into a cheap and profitable “industry” by borrowing concepts like airliner “reusability.” Add basic human greed by way of satellite launch revenues. The truth is that satellites have little to do with “space” when space is defined as Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Orbit (HSF-BEO). The very first job of a White House space council in my view would be to throw the B.S. flag on LEO and NewSpace. There is no cheap.

Lesser impact events can also kill and do significant damage to folks on the Home Planet.

“However Kevin Yau et al. of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory did note several similarities of the Ch’ing-yang meteor fall to the Tunguska event, which would have destroyed a highly populous district.[1][6]”

And, “One surviving account records:[1]
‘Stones fell like rain in the Ch’ing-yang district. The larger ones were 4 to 5 catties (斤, about 1.5 kg), and the smaller ones were 2 to 3 catties (about 1 kg). Numerous stones rained in Ch’ing-yang. Their sizes were all different. The larger ones were like goose’s eggs and the smaller ones were like water-chestnuts. More than 10,000 people were struck dead. All of the people in the city fled to other places.”

“And, The History of Ming work (the 明史, or Míng Shǐ) states only that there was a rain of uncountable stones of various sizes. The large objects were as big “as a goose egg, and the small ones were the size of the fruit of an aquatic plant”. The date given was the third lunar month of 1490, which translates as March 21 to April 19, 1490.[2]”

From: 1490 Ch’ing-yang event Wikipedia
At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1490_Ch%27ing-yang_event

Perhaps another impact event was involved in killing a large number of humans and animals.

“The South Carolina researchers found an abundance of platinum in soil layers that coincided with the ‘Younger-Dryas,’ a climatic period of extreme cooling that began around 12,800 ago and lasted about 1,400 years. While the brief return to ice-age conditions during the Younger-Dryas has been well-documented by scientists, the reasons for it and the demise of the Clovis people and animals have remained unclear.”

And, “‘Platinum is very rare in the Earth’s crust, but it is common in asteroids and comets,’ says Christopher Moore, the study’s lead author. He calls the presence of platinum found in the soil layers at 11 archaeological sites in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina an anomaly.”

‘Discovery of widespread platinum may help solve Clovis people mystery’
By: University of South Carolina March 9, 2017
At: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-discovery-widespread-platinum-clovis-people.html#jCp

“The ice on the Moon is the critical enabling resource and a program of state sponsored Super Heavy Lift Vehicle launches the inflexible path to answering these very real threats.”

Yep.

Yep.

Note:

“Speaking at the symposium Tuesday morning, prior to Raymond’s announcement, Rogers said his ultimate goal is to create a separate space force within the military.”

“’We have to acknowledge that the national security space structure is broken,’ the congressman said. ‘It’s very hard for a government bureaucracy to fix itself, and that’s exactly why congressional oversight exists.’”

From: ‘Air Force reorg too timid for House milspace leaders’
By Phillip Swarts April 5, 2017
At: http://spacenews.com/air-force-reorg-too-timid-for-house-milspace-leaders/#sthash.AMvkU6m9.dpuf

To make full use of such a “space force”, America would need lots of propellant in cislunar Space.

The Moon offers great opportunities to provide that propellant to a “space force” and many international commercial space folks.

However, a trillion tons of NASA Mars blather and decades more of dithering and unfunded ‘flags and footprints on the Red Planet’ plans won’t provide one drop of the needed propellant for such a “space force” and the many international commercial folks in Cislunar Space.

A powerful national systems perspective that includes all of our activities and concerns in Cislunar Space is needed.

International space activities will need to be understood and worked with as part of our American efforts to integrate space opportunities with the Home Planet’s economy and security.

A strong National Space Council could be quite useful in helping America and the world coordinate all of the Home Planet’s work on the Moon and in the rest of Cislunar Space.

On the short list of events that could end civilization and send us back to the dark ages is several thousand H-bombs exploded on the surface of the Earth at once. The disruption of the global food producing and distribution infrastructure would result in a cascade of death, malnutrition, and disease that would kill off most of the 7.5 billion human beings on Earth within a few years.

And yes, there are people who look forward to it and if they had the opportunity would try and make it happen.

Moving the global nuclear arsenal into deep space months away from Earth would ratchet down the hair trigger launch on warning scenario and also provide a way to deflect comet and asteroid impact threats. An impact is an item on that short list of civilization ending events that could not only kill most of us, but kill us all and render humankind extinct. The ice on the Moon is the critical enabling resource and a program of state sponsored Super Heavy Lift Vehicle launches the inflexible path to answering these very real threats.

Over the past four decades the world has plodded on with the same political and economic problems it has always had and sooner or later our luck is going to run out. Billionaut hobbyists with space clown tourist fantasies are not the solution.

NASA’s leadership has failed and continues to fail in providing effective leadership in Cislunar Space resource awareness and exploitation.

However, NASA isn’t the only American government agency with critical responsibilities in space.

“The Air Force is looking to expand its information sharing not just with the commercial industry, but with international partners as well. Strategic Command announced April 5 a new agreement with Norway to share space situational awareness data.

And, “It’s the 75th such agreement the United States has signed, Hyten said, which includes agreements with 13 nations, the European Space Agency, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, and 60 commercial entities.”

And, “The Air Force is responsible for many national security space programs and the SecAf was named as the Principal DOD Space Advisor (PDSA) in the Obama Administration. Still, finding an effective organizational model to develop strategy for and execute space activities in the national security sector — DOD and the Intelligence Community (IC) — apparently remains elusive.”

From: ‘Declassification and partnerships needed for better space defense, Hyten says’
By Phillip Swarts 4/6/2017
At: http://spacenews.com/declassification-partnerships-needed-for-better-space-defense-hyten-says/#sthash.xTUq0UUw.dpuf

As Joe noted above:

“The NSC could coordinate such compatibility with the Department of Defense, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and other US government agencies. This would encourage other governments and private concerns to do likewise.”

As Paul Spudis noted above:

“A sizeable contingent within NASA opposed a return to the Moon, favoring instead an Apollo-style Mars mission, and they set about to ‘slow roll’ the lunar part of the Vision.”

And, “If that “direction” doesn’t change significantly, then having a space council or not doesn’t make any difference — we won’t be going anywhere.”

To meet America’s and the Home Planet’s resource, industrialization, security, and other needs on the Moon and in the rest of Cislunar Space we need to get rid of the ‘Mars Soon and Cheaply Too’ cancer that has infected NASA’s leadership.

A strong National Space Council could be quite useful in helping America and the world coordinate all of the Home Planet’s work in Cislunar Space and in doing the needed surgery to remove the ‘Mars Soon Cancer’ from NASA.

Just out of curiosity, where are you getting the idea that the administration intends to fund those worthy goals at the expense of SLS/Orion?

I know you can go to a number of websites to read people (not associated with the administration) proposing such plans, or (for that matter) defunding SLS/Orion for practically anything else as defunding SLS/Orion is their only real goal.

However, nobody associated with the administration had said anything like that.

In fact Representative Jim Bridenstine (considered to be the frontrunner to become NASA Administrator has repeatedly said just the opposite. He supports at least some of the “laundry list” you posited above and full funding for SLS/Orion as well.

Hopefully not, though I share your apprehension. Regarding a Council, I think it could help vocalize the President’s position, provide some publicity. This is a good thing, but when push comes to shove with dollars, the dollars reside with Congress and the President, not the Council, would need to spend some political capital to push forward an agenda for real progress. If the administration agreed perfectly with Congress there would be no clash, of course, but I’m referring to significant cuts or cancellation of SLS/Orion in order to pursue many of the TRL-raising activities, infrastructure, prospecting questions solved via orbiters, penetrators, rovers, etc. which represent a better use of funds. In the case of this level of disagreement, I’m not sure it matters if there’s a Council or not. Just my two cents.

If we are to truly make use of lunar resources to develop cis-lunar space, other (public and private) entities will have to be convinced to design there future payloads to be compatible with that goal. The NSC could coordinate such compatibility with the Department of Defense, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and other US government agencies. This would encourage other governments and private concerns to do likewise.

NASA as a single government agency would not be able to take the leadership in such a process.