Okay: Dark Horse and CAPS
The technological constraints on other manned space launchers are well known - in air refueling gets around them.
Blow the current purchasing mess.
Turn Dark Horse over to Skunk Works or Phantom Works, and give them ability to "hire" talent from other firms on a "semi-voluntary" basis - put together Tiger Team, build craft. Fly it with test pilots, and if it goes down, correct flaw and go again...
CAPS - no one except for a few Mars Nuts really gives a shit about Mars - 6 out of 7 want NASA to find the next inbound comet (and that's comet, not asteroid, as some retards fail to understand) before it sends us the way of the dinosaurs. Use existing EELVs to do it.
The end.
ep