Only GWB has had the guts to cancel the Space Shuttle, and the good sense to do it in a reasonable and discernable timeframe. The STS costs too much, and is destroying NASA. Ultimately, the so-called International Space Station is where most of the Shuttle money goes, so the ISS contributes to the destruction of NASA and to the US space program. And the ISS will be ditched in ten years or so, the same way Mir was.
In order to go to Mars, one first must go to the Moon, developing the skills and techniques (and technology) to do the harder job by doing the easier one. Mars was Von Braun's ultimate goal, and each step was carefully chosen to make the next step possible. First, orbiting something. Then, showing humans could survive spaceflight and what they needed to do it. Next, orbiting a human. Then, orbiting a crew. Spacewalk. Rendezvous. Free return lunar trajectory. Practice landing without touchdown, rendezvous, return. Landing.
The abandonment of Apollo was due to LBJ's huge Vietnam debacle, which was extricated by Nixon and Kissinger. The Apollo program was targeted for cuts in 1969. We wound up with the undersupported Skylab, the strictly political Apollo-Soyuz, the kludged-up STS...
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent