alternatives to the VSE

Interesting Aviation Week & Space Technology article on a meeting of aerospace leaders to craft an alternative to the current Vision for Space Exploration. I have to say that I tend to agree with these meeting participants. A key paragraph quote is:

""It's becoming painfully obvious that the Moon is not a stepping-stone for manned Mars operations but is instead a stumbling block," says Robert Farquhar, a veteran of planning and operating planetary and deep-space missions."

It would be easier to have missions to near Earth asteroids and that would be much more of a "stepping stone" to Mars than a lunar base. Who knows what will happen? It will all be up to the next president.