NASA as far as ever from men on Mars?

Questions about how far NASA is on both rockets and spacecraft for the future, questions about whether those questions have been stifled for political reasons — the internal NASA politics of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, not BushCo politics — and questions about what options it has, show that NASA is an agency in search of a rationale, focus, mission and vision on the manned side of space flight (especially beyond the space station), and still struggling with all four of those points.

That said, Griffin is at the heart of much of the controversy, and appears too stubbornly invested in his own views on how NASA should approach manned flight. I think Obama would do well to replace him immediately.

And then have NASA take a look at that rationale, focus, mission and vision — a non-romanticized look. I think manned flight to Mars needs to be shelved for many, many years.