Ouch, not the most auspicious start.

Some extracts from the article:

Ed Weiler, NASA's AA for Space Science, on the Moon robotic missions:

"These missions will not be driven by science," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the NASA’s Office of Space Science. "They will be driven by preparations for human landings."

...

In the new NASA, robotic missions must more closely relate to the overall effort to put people on other worlds.

Weiler pointed out that prior to the Apollo missions, robots photographed the Moon from above and landers explored the surface. A similar but more expedited robotic campaign will be carried out this time.

[This will be very familiar to anyone who's studied the 1960s Moon program. Apollo did a lot of good science, more than people like Shoemaker gave it credit, but boy it could have done a LOT more science had our priorities been a little bit different and a little less hasty.]

.....

[and espeically disturbing in light of the exchange with Nick, myself, and others below on Mars science strategy...]

Mars missions will begin shifting focus early in the next decade, said Orlando Figueroa, one of Weiler's top lieutenants and the NASA official in charge of exploring the Moon and planets.

So far, Mars missions have been geared toward the search for water, as well as understanding the climate, atmosphere and environment as a whole. The new budget provides more money to examine safety issues at the red planet, "so we can begin preparing in a more focused way" for sending humans, Figueroa said.

He added that in 2011, the focus starts to shift from looking for water to looking for organic compounds, signs of life or signatures of the seeds of life.

So what happens in 2020 or so when we haven't seen any organic compounds? We lose interest and the human missions get called off, while at the same time we haven't done a lot of the research we might to to explore the real geologic story at Mars?