As far back as the 60s NASA had already laid out technical plans for how to get humans to Mars. The Moon was never meant to be the destination, but a brief stepping stone to greater things. So we can thank Nixon for setting humanity's progress back by half a century. The ISS and Space Shuttle both were driven largely by these initial plans.

But the current claustrophobic nature of the ISS was, again, not the destination. There was a grand scheme of in-orbit refueling, fuel depots, and much larger scale space architecture. Something of the ISS scale was intended as a short jumping-off point, a workers' tent analog. But our progress stalled out and the workers' tent is what we were left with.

The point I'm making here is that space in the era we're stepping into is very unlikely to look much like the one we're leaving. This is even more true as the price drops because private industry will be able to play a major role. There will be no Nixon to just cancel everything out of concerns for his political career.