Kennedy made his "We dare to go to the moon" speech in 1961, pledging to get there by the end of the decade. That's about 8 1/2 years. To do that required massive spending by NASA, with the peak year consuming fully 5.5% of the entire federal budget. The article mentioned returning to the moon "by the end of the next decade", a period of about 17 years. It says we'll do it without requiring massive increases in spending. Furthermore, they plan on developing far more than the minimal "flags and footprints" Apollo capability. They're talking about developing some fundamental technology and capabilities that are directly translatable to other missions beyond the moon.

Apollo, as impressive as it was, was ultimately the minimal equipment necessary to land two men on the moon and allow them to stay for up to 3 days. To go beyond that would've required some substancial upgrades to the hardware. Even some of the NASA mission directors said that it was time to call it quits by Apollo 17 because they were cutting the margins so fine, continued missions would've likely led to the loss of another crew.

If we're going to develop real spacefaring capabilities, we need to develop the equipment and expertise to go beyond the minimum required for a given mission. Some engineers oppose this because they want to optimize each vehicle for a given mission. Of course, doing so provides a measure of job security for them and allows them to play with new toys.

Developing a single manned spacecraft with the inherent capability to support long term missions to the moon, to NEOs, and eventually to Mars would result in a vehicle that isn't optimized for any of those missions, but capable of performing them all. As an analogy, think about the process you use to select a new vehicle for your family. Do you buy a car optimized for a given role, say commuting to work, but unable to do the other things you need, like carrying the kids and groceries or handling winter weather? Or, do you try to buy the best all around vehicle to meet your needs? Most people try the later approach.

A non-optimized multimission vehicle is always a compromise. Just look at the F-111. However, having surplus capability can be very useful. Look back to the development of ICBMs back in the 1950s. The US made a breakthrough on warhead size, so our missiles could be made much smaller. The Soviets didn't have small warheads, so they made huge missiles. When the time came to use those missiles to launch things into space, they had a big advantage in lifting ability that lasted for several years. The same advantage can apply to the manned vehicle I describe. Instead of being limited to a 3 day stay on the moon, it might be able to stay for months.

Pushing up the deadline to something a lot closer, say 2013, would require a lot more money than Congress is likely to authorize. Back in the 1960s, NASA's unoffical motto was "Waste anything but time." They felt so constrained by the 1970 deadline that they were very wasteful, and they did this deliberately. I don't think going back to that mode of business is a good idea, both from a taxpayer and a mission safety standpoint. "Go fever" killed the Apollo 1 crew (and Challenger, and Columbia). It almost killed other crews as well. If we start losing a lot of crews, we risk undermining the entire manned space program.