The Committee to Nuke Elysium

…presumably for years after Obama leaves office in 2016 (should he be re-elected in 2012), the US will have no vehicle capable of putting astronauts into orbit. It will be able to buy passenger space on Russian rockets or on the rapidly-developing Chinese manned vehicles or maybe by 2015 even on Indian rockets. But it will essentially be a hitch-hiker on other countries’ space programmes.

…

Which is why the first man on Mars will probably be Chinese or Indian, not American.