Good article! I certainly appreciate his points about aligning American space efforts with those things have have made the country strong...free enterprise, entrepreneurship, etc.

Which makes me wonder about this:

''...let us simply posit that our purpose should be to advance the national interest and human flourishing, extending into space freedom, democracy, capitalism, and the institutions that promote them.
''

Is this perhaps too abstract as a purpose for going into space? What's wrong with simply saying our purpose is to seek commercial opportunity and growth? And if America succeeds in space under those terms, then freedom, democracy and capitalism will be extended there as a matter of course.