The Completely False Choice
During an interview on The Space Show Jeff Greason described the Flexible Path as a pragmatic approach to human space exploration when considering NASA's limited budget. Towards the end he says: The question is not "do we or don't we go to the Moon", that's a completely false choice. The question is do we structure the program, for the same money, in a way in which - in addition to going back to the Moon - we get asteroids, Lagrange points, maybe a Mars flyby, and we build up deep space experience that we're going to need for Mars, instead of waiting 20 years and hoping that the public's enthusiasm can be sustained. The message here is that the Moon and Mars both require landers and it's hard enough just trying to get there with a limited budget. So, assuming NASA isn't going to get double as much money, it needs to find a way to do with what it's got. This is a fiscal reality. Those who say "Constellation can be fixed" or ...