Robert Kitzmueller wrote:

ISS experience should have little relevance.


Less than Saturn V?

They're both inapplicable. We didn't build Saturn because it was the
best way to establish a sustainable lunar exploration program. We did
it because we were in a hurry, had money to burn, and wanted the
lowest-risk approach. That was then, this is now, and we know a lot
more about how to do it.

Much of the ISS problem
was due to political constraints. If we develop decent EVA equipment,


How much would cost this, assuming NASA would have to do this?

I don't know, but certainly a lot less than a heavy lifter.

(Even if NASA would not do it inhouse, NASA would least be responsible
for the oversight of it all.)


and have affordable access to orbit,


How affordable? Delta 4 Heavy like? Or ten times cheaper? Where is
Your limit for affordable?

Much less than any existing vehicle.


building orbital infrastructure
shouldn't be that big a deal. And if we don't have those things, the
vision is doomed to failure anyway.


Well, the US can certainly afford to send men to the moon Apollo-style.
Even if it would not be cheap this way. You could do so in the 60s, and
the GNP increased a lot in the meantime.

We can, but we won't (at least I hope not).

I still like big rockets, though...

Yes, many people do, and at bottom that's really the only reason to
build them. We certainly won't get a sustainable program from them
(particularly since, like the Shuttle we'd have another fragile
monoculture, so that if we had to shut down the heavy lifter, we'd be
dead in the water, as we are now). We need much more diversity and
resiliency in our space infrastructure. Dependence on heavy lift
(particularly a single vehicle type, and who thinks we can afford two?)
yields a fragile, and brittle one.