This is an incredibly pro-space piece of news out of the Obama team, but what gets the focus is the potential termination of the boondoggle Ares program.

This article is far more interesting due to the last paragraph:

"Obama's NASA transition team also appears to be interested in a number of specific projects that have more or less languished in recent years. Among those projects are: the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a mothballed Earth-observing satellite formerly known as Triana; agency efforts to catalog asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth; and the harnessing of space-based solar power for use on Earth."

The article also alludes to a potential expansion of the COTS commercial space program, potential uses for EELV launchers, etc.

If the Obama team is serious about these projects (especially space solar power) it would mean a revolution in space funding and a committment to space development that would make Ares pale in comparison. SSP would mean a real orbital infrastructure that would enable a huge number of possibilities, such as real lunar bases and mars missions, not plant a flag crap which is where Ares is headed.

The real possibility here would be a scrapping of parts of Ares in favor of Direct 2.0 or EELV based programs for lunar and mars missions. X-33 will not happen IMHO, due to COTS-based ISS crew rotation capability being much cheaper to develop.

VASIMR gets us there (NEP or SEP). Water shields the crew.

But I laughed out loud at the shot of the bridge with two Symbol M2000 barcode scanners prominently displayed on top of the console.

Somebody in props on that film is being overpaid.