The issue is someone claiming they have a better way, but no meeting the basic requirements. You know the constellation program was supposed to develop architecture to suitable for going on to Mars. The Moon portion was supposed to have as much commonality with Mars as possible so we would not have to spend a huge pile of money to develope another booster. It is ridiculous to consider abandoning that fiscal responsibility at a time like this.

Your claim "We need to start focusing on a robust assembly and refueling capability in space, not trying to get everything on one launch." baloney in my book. That approach has been over budget and behind schedule far beyond what is normal for NASA. The ISS way is the wrong way unless you have to do it that way. Build a true heavy lift launch vehicle and then do orbital assembly if you have to. Hamstringing yourself to orbital assembly for anything beyond lunar orbit to save a small amount of money is what is truly silly. Especially when you consider the small savings now requires a big expense later.

While it takes less energy to send a pound to Mars than the lunar surface which makes the Mars by way of the moon arguements luny toons, you obviously have to send more pounds for a three year mission than a three week one. We need to build the most capable heavy lift launch vehicle we can once because it's unrealistic to think we will get the funding to build another in the first half of this century based on past history. If you key interest in space is soley diverting asteroids you should also want as much lift as possible to give us as many options as possible to deal with the threat.

Rutan style handwaiving space tasks as easy lost all credibility with me when he accidentally killed several people. NASA's "making things hard" often is based on being conservative on safety. When NASA has failed on safety it is usually from complacency not up front neglect. It is much easier to throroughly test stuff built on the ground than in space.

Regards,
Mark