One prominent space activist said that his strategy is to “save the baby” — that is, he’s not so much interested in getting Congress and the Administration to do what he wants, as just trying to ensure that they don’t manage to kill the space industries before they really get started (something that’s certainly not beyond Congress or, for that matter, the NASA bureaucracy if it feels sufficiently threatened).
And the best line on space policy is actually an old one from Rand Simberg, but it represents how the next Administration, of whatever party, ought to approach the subject: “It’s not NASA’s job to send a man to Mars. It’s NASA’s job to make it possible for the National Geographic Society to send a man to Mars.” Indeed.