quick and dirty
bush said "lets go to mars!!". His plan was outlined basically to go back to the moon, and build a base/refuel station. then use this as a hop to get out to farther targets. a large meteor, and then mars.
nasa takes bids for new vehicle. Lockheed wins and it is dubbed "CEV" or Orion. The "new" vehicle is very similar to apollo, in its capsule design. We begin building it, run into issues with the heavy lift rocket. lots of stuff are over budget and behind schedule (duh its the government). Obamaman comes along, and says "WTF is this?" He then single handedly all but shut down nasa. congress fought his budgets until nasa had at least a little money.
so here is the "plan"
1 keep developing Orion, but only the capsule. Deliver it to ISS to be used as an escape pod.
2 eventually, someday, travel back to the moon, and eventually try for mars, but not using any of the stuff we have now. Obama basically told us, this is what i want to do, but i dont know how we are going to do it.
3 use large portions of NASA's budget to invest in private companies like space-x and virgin. Use them to do the "lightweight" stuff which will free up nasa to work on new technology for # 2.
4 in the mean time depend on russia to ferry our guys to and from ISS as well as there unmanned lift to take supplies.
here is why i have a problem with it all.
1 we are the most powerful country in the world, no exception, yet we will have no way at all to travel to space.
2 the private companies will never be able to do what nasa does, with the effecientcy and skill. plus who is going to insure anything some guy built in his garage that is supposed to travel to the ISS, and who the heck would climb inside it and go?
3 we are laying off people left and right, people that have been in space science for many years. once they move on, that knowledge is gone. they arent going to want to come back in 5 years when we decide to go again.
4 Not having a defined goal, and a plan to achieve it is a real moral killer...
5 have you SEEN the russian capsule? it looks like a church bell someone drug out of a river and set on fire. Those guys are crazy.
Yes that is a divot in the ground. it uses a land landing instead of water. THUMP
There are many people who are very upset about all this. Then the icing on the cake, we (houston/johnson space center) dont get one of the shuttles after they are retired.