When Did We Stop Dreaming | SpaceNews.com

With an administration which doesn't want a manned space program, but doesn't want the political liability of outright cancellation, we continue to limp along with an underfunded NASA.

...the most probable prospect for at least the next few years is some version of the current program with its political support driven primarily by the desire to preserve jobs, contracts and scientific communities, operating indefinitely on a flat and inadequate budget. This will result in a NASA little changed from the space shuttle/international space station status quo. This suboptimum effort will still produce significant benefits for the country, just not the excellence that could be achieved by the kind of better-formulated and better-supported program...