My own sources - sounds like you're implying I select what sources to trust. I don't. The ITER folks who say everything's going peachy and will deliver fusion to market on time and as soon as you say (actually, you're the only one I've heard say it'll be delivered so early) all sound like they're selling ITER rather than giving the straight dope. Which is understandable seeing as its their jobs that depend on people's support.
I never assumed nor implied that the US drives the project. It's just a notable because characteristic trend. ITER is behind schedule and way over budget. I haven't seen any news that even say otherwise. That it's almost undoubtedly a science rather than energy project is obviously the nail in its coffin, but that's as far as pro-ITER people will argue. There's no doubt that it won't deliver for decades yet.
Japanese and French, both of whom do nuclear energy a lot better than we do (including Dr. Krall)
Please show evidence for this, I'm curious.
But even if we are getting fusion power starting in 2050 or 2060, it will take decades to develop the technology to live and work on the moon, Mars and near-Earth asteroids and development won't begin until it is clear that astronauts can be supported in those places successfully.
What's the connection implied between the two? And fyi (since you don't seem to be completely in touch with fusion news) there's a few other fusion efforts that might just deliver before ITER's done with experimental phase. E.G. Tri-Alpha, Focus Fusion, General Fusion, Polywell. IIRC all of them cheaper than ITER by quite a bit.
So, SpaceX and the like can get me into LEO, and let us assume that I (being the average customer) can actually afford the ticket. What do I do when I get there? I mean, really, what is the product? Who is the customer? Can they afford the price? Why will they buy it?[...]
Like I said. There's plenty of things to do in space. Space based solar power for one, is supposed to be borderline unfeasible right now only because of space access costs. Then there's the rich people hotels, a good kick starter. It'll take however long it takes, but eventually there's plenty of reasons to go to and stay in space. Constellation as it was wasn't going to make things any faster than leaving the dirty space truck work to private industry ought to.
Going to the moon is good for the country because it is good for the economy, which isn't going to be stimulated by low-end construction and manufacturing jobs. A strong space program doing things that haven't been done many times before and actually accomplishing useful things will benefit the country both economically, academically and emotionally. Continuing to pay the lion's share of the bill so that other countries can send astronauts to the ISS and do the same old stuff isn't that interesting.
Going to the moon isn't automatically good. You can go to the moon on such a bad plan that it's ultimately a Pyrrhic achievement.
The low end construction and mfg jobs argument is made without context. No comment from me without more info.
The new policy may give such a "strong" (because based on stronger industrial base) program and do things that haven't been done (dunno how it wouldn't - teleoperated bots on the moon like that M2 project with GM as partner, or going to NEOs, or landing on Phobos, maybe teleoperating bots on Mars from there, and so on, there's plenty of examples in the literature).
Useful things is a vague thing to say. You could mean useful in the sense that it keeps people employed doing anything that feeds their household, or you could mean laying groundwork for future developments, for which easier access to space is item #1. Economic, academic and emotional all satisfied.
ISS - It can't be de orbited too soon either. Bad diplomatic move for intl partners and even the US public would probably not like seeing so many years and $B thrown down the sink so soon. Least worst choice is to make the best of it for a while more.
To date, I have not seen, heard of or read about, anywhere, any viable business plan for a market in commercial human spaceflight, and believe me, I have done business development in aerospace for ten years and I know how these companies work. They are incredibly risk averse. None of them are going to undertake any project unless there is a bag of money on the table up front and someone else is funding the R&D and the training. And this "if you build it they will come" argument of yours holds no validity. The demand isn't there and the ISS isn't our future in space, it's our past (aka skylab 2.0)
Well then. You're quite the big shot, know more than I do and there's no argument to be had. You have made your conclusions and won't change them. We'll just have to wait and see. I say private industry will do about the same (a sum of positives and negatives) as NASA was managing, and that we are in fact at the start of more, not less, space development. And that the recently ex-Moon plan was less good in the long term than this new one, provided it's done as suggested (instead of badly executed as Constellation was) and isn't some clever way for the admin to gradually gut everything but climate science, as some are speculating. That it's a positive to have eggs in a few baskets (ULA, SpaceX, Orbital...) instead of one (Ares.).
I never argued that ISS was the future. I think it's mostly ballast to NASA's progress.
In retrospect I'm curious how someone with 10+ years of such experience could start an argument over ITER being exactly as publicized on its official site as you report above, when the reality is nothing like it. Maybe it's just an implicit argument to authority.