Bolden's wrong in two respects. The first is that hardly any resources have been applied to specific Mars related aspects of the plan, which have been pushed back to the mid to late 20s and beyond. All the budget during Bolden's term has been applied to developing the moneysinks of SLS and Orion which have crowded out Mars specific mission funding. This is a consequence none too upsetting to partisans who desire a switch in direction from the next administration to a SLS and Orion based Moon program and who wanted to obstruct the development of progress on a Mars oriented path, and a setback for which even Bolden and other program of record supporters who profess to care about realizing the Mars end goal don't care about either. The original plan Obama put forward was to advance some more Mars specific and next generation technology investments before selecting and undertaking launch and spacecraft related work for which the asteroid and then Mars oriented program would later need. This plan was sabotaged and hijacked by pro-SLS extremists for a variety of reasons not mutually exclusive: political hyper-partisans who were against the new democrat administration and its policies, partisans of the previous moon oriented program including those who refused to recognize and come to terms with its faults, shuttle fans who wanted a continuation of the space shuttle program in a new form, sdhlv fanatics who wanted the future space program to be oriented around a shuttle derived heavy lift launch vehicle which they had cultivated a puritanical belief in its virtue and attachment towards and hatred for critiques and opposing strategies, and for the corrupt who wanted to reap the graft inherent in the new megaproject. Thus, with little done on the Mars part of the plan, the program could switch directions away from Mars with SLS and Orion without skipping a beat.

The second fault of Bolden is that SLS and Orion, continued with, are a bad means to reach Mars, and the other places. Their expense will still continue to constrict funding for significant Mars specific program work, as will the funding for makework missions for them in the years ahead while they idle for a delayed Mars oriented program, and they will be a poor basis for a Mars program of expanded accomplishment due to their poor cost fitness versus the alternate strategies. Switching direction from SLS and Orion to another means of pursuing the Mars goal would both make Mars come closer to being achieved and better achieved as well as allow the possibility of widening the scope of accomplishment possible to include alternate co-destinations to undertake like the moon by increasing the extent of what can be done.