“Useful?”
I’m concerned about national security and our strength as a nation. The perception (and reality) is that we have walked away from space.
Launching payloads to LEO isn’t going to cut it. A lot of countries do that.
I think you'll find that the military efforts have not been curtailed significantly, though Obama might dearly wish to. There are still enough "strong defense" Democrats that ally with Republicans to keep that going.
That may change if he wins the next term. If he loses, I think you'll see a significant turnaround in the status of civilian efforts.
"Launching payloads to LEO isn’t going to cut it. A lot of countries do that."
Launching payloads to LEO ECONOMICALLY is THE absolute necessity to all the rest of space for ALL operations, both civilian AND military. The private efforts in the US are still the best bet for that to happen. It was never going to happen with NASA in charge....it lost it's mojo long ago.