The problem is that the atmosphere is too thin to use heat shield to slow enough soon enough. How do you do orbit insertion in the first place in your scheme? You don't have months to aerobrake like we do with our robotic probes. The problems with atmospheric density means it would be extremely difficult to do any kind of accurate quick slowing. Because it is so inaccurate, if you attempted it you might slow too little and get too low for other technologies to deploy correctly. So, you are basically talking about using thrusters to slow and that takes a lot of fuel and mass.

I just made a post of why robotic exploration of mars should be emphasized for the near term and this is just one more confirmation of that view. We should be seeding and developing out of the box thinking for propulsion, landing, and space elevator technologies, but we can't pin a date on when the supporting technologies would enable affordable manned exploration.

When will the (NASA) space community figure out COST is as limiting a factor as pressure, heat, and radiation. We send robotic probes in places where there is too much radiation, heat, or pressure for humans. It should be the same thing for COST. If it takes 100 times the cost to send humans it is an absurd tradeoff for little gain.

Using Phobos as a base for real time teleoperations is an idea that has merit that I have floated myself years ago. However, with the advances in robotic technologies, simulation, communication, and virtual environments, I really question now that real time operation will have gains in efficiency that remotely (pun intended) approach the extra cost. Robots are reaching a stage where every little action doesn't need to be guided, just overall planning and that can be done remotely with a time delay. We need to learn to delegate, just like a lot of bosses.

Robotic technologies are starting to come into their own. You can see it here on earth in so many areas, from deep sea exploration, dangerous environment probing (volcanoes, nuclear reactors), flying and especially combat flying(UAVs), ground combat robots, unmanned ground vehicles, etc... With extreme virtual environment immersion, we can come close to the idea that if our tools (robotic probes) are there, we are there. We should FUTURE manned missions, to FUTURE robotic missions (how effective will robots be in 2 decades? which is the soonest we are contemplating manned mission to mars?).

One of the main points I keep trying to make is that robotic technology development is on the critical path of any kind of affordable manned exploration, so you only slow the day for manned exploration, by diverting (serious) funds prematurely from robotic development to manned exploration.

Currently, the only path I see to getting started with a manned sustainable presence is space tourism through private companies. Bootstrapping is really the only sustainable way that things happen; stuff has to pay for itself. Then the technologies evolve naturally that will increase efficiency and build the market. Finally, when enough money justifies it, enough funds will be put into research just for current/future profits to get the necessary breakthoughs to support manned expansion into space. Space hotels will be built, asteroids mined, and we will be off and running. But please, lets not blow a TRILLION dollars on a NASA super mission.