When are we gonna get there?

From Bob Park's What's New (05/12/06):

3. SPACE: THE ONLY THING IN NASA THAT STILL GOES UP IS THE COST.
Michael Griffin told his science advisory committee this week
that he could not keep the commitment he made a year ago not to
shift money from science to human space flight. I wasn't on the
committee, but I tried to imagine how it might have gone if I had
been.

MG: The problem is the ISS.
RP: What problem?
MG: We have to finish it by 2010.
RP: Why is that a problem?
MG: Because the shuttle doesn't work.
RP: If we fix the shuttle and finish the ISS, what do we do next?
MG: We drop the ISS in the ocean.
RP: Why don't we do that now?
MG: Because we must honor our commitment to our ISS partners first.
RP: But what about
your commitment to space science?
MG: That will have to wait until we get back from Mars.
RP: We're going to Mars?
MG: When we get back from the moon.
RP: We're going to the moon?
MG: Just as soon as we build a new spacecraft.
RP: What's holding that up?
MG: The problem is the ISS.

Lather, rinse, repeat.