The future of NASA

[Alex]

Except in what way is it a proven winner? The Constellation Program is almost 8 years old, exactly when is it going to start producing societal excitement (keeping in mind that only one third of the way through its mandate it is already years behind schedule and billions over budget)?

I would argue that the Mars rovers have produced multiples of the amount of interest that Constellation has, at a fraction of the cost and with the benefit of involving actual science. Hell, exploding a rocket into the surface of the moon generated more interest so far than the manned moon mission.

And if you want a big flashy manned spaceflight goal is not the maintained goal of sending manned missions to Mars (skipping the moon) sufficient in that regard?