NASA has been sending men and equipment into space for more than fifty years. However, with the introduction of the Space Shuttle in 1980, it became essentially a transportation and shipping company rather than an organization charged with developing modern technologies to take Americans to Mars and beyond. The Space Shuttle was a tremendous technological achievement that allowed NASA to send millions of tons of cargo and equipment to low Earth, but its successor, the Constellation program, which relied on rockets and crew capsules, like NASA's first space programs, represents a late step in the design of space exploration vehicles ("Propulsion Systems", 2003). At this critical time in the U.S. space program, NASA should look to the future rather than the past. President Obama's cancellation of the Constellation program in the 2011 federal budget may seem to some to signal the end of NASA as an organization. However, his intention in canceling the program is apparently to relieve NASA of the burden of pursuing old technology to continue doing so....