The heat shield issue was resolved about 9 months ago. There was a lot of talk about that at the time, regarding the mechanism and why they think they have resolved it.

I'd argue human space exploration is one of the most important things we will do this century, it is certainly worthy of the pennies on the dollar the US spends on it. The long term future of humanity is at stake, we either spread through the universe or Earth will become our eventual tomb.

Let's do all of those things AND go to the Moon!
This is barely a blip of US federal funding.