The very word makes me want to cringe. Poly = many and tics are blood sucking parasites. To me, politics most often represents the worst aspects of humanity. It may be a necessary evil, but it is evil none the less.

Take a straight-forward idea like AFE with a limited budget, then insist that it has to be flown on the Shuttle, guaranteeing that you'll bust the budget (and refuse to give it more money, of course!).

The ramifications of being able to return from the moon or Mars and to enter Earth orbit are significant. If you can leave the transit vehicle in orbit, then there's the possibility of being able to service it and use it for subsequent missions. Aerocapture into Earth orbit would radically reduce the amount of propellant necessary for orbital insertion, meaning you'd need a lot less propellant at every earlier stage of the mission. Depending on whether your transit vehicle has all the propellant needed for the return trip when it initally departs Earth orbit or whether it generates the return propellant at Mars, the snowball effect is enormous. For a lunar mission where local fuel production possibilities might be more limited, every additional kilo of propellant at the beginning of the mission would probably require an additional 5-10+ kilos of propellant that the beginning of the mission. The ratios would be similar for Mars.

Being able to aerocapture into Mars orbit would also result in a tremendous savings. Given the thinner atmosphere, that might be a more difficult proposition.