re: Nanotech
Gary, I think you're unfortunately too close to the situation being in aerospace. Unfortunately the US aerospace capability IS moribund as you say. Naturally confronting this daily leads to cynicism and depression.
I think that there is a future for other technologies, sadly less space exploration related. I've long been a nanotek sceptic but really more skeptical of the Eric Drexler cult school of miraculous assemblers et. al. "real soon now". I'm not that skeptical of potentials in carbon nanotubes and of actual real work which has some funding in private industry and academia.
Forget NASA for anything except a MER and an astronomical observatory here and there.