When president made his speech on january 14 2004 about the Vision for Space Exploration, we knew at that time there'd be a long hiatus in american manned space launches!

The VSE was proposed and defended by a group of space enthusiasts who were no more interested in remaining in Low Earth Orbit....So, why all the fuss, now?

Is it politically more important to be able to go to space without relying on someone else's spacecrafts or to go further out even if it means a hiatus, fewer astronauts in the long run?

And private companies? It seems quite unlikely they can achieve manned spaceflights without as much money (from NASA) as NASA would be spending for its own equivalent program.

One thing NASA could do, though....would be to ask one NASA astronaut to spend 2 years aboard the ISS, followed by another one who'd spend 3 years (thus, 5 years and merely 3 Soyuz flights); they'd learn a lot about long duration flights, without relying on too many Russian flights, and cover the hiatus!