As I think more about the roadmap, I keep coming back to all the things that need to get designed before anyone sets foot on Mars. Then, I listen to NASA talk about its long range plans...SLS, Orion, Deep Space Gateway... And the big aerospace incumbents also seem completely focused on plans that use their rockets to get to Mars sometime in the 20-nevers.

No one, yet, is taking SpaceX seriously. Lockheed Martin is still imagining an orbital outpost that they'll build. NASA is still pursuing SLS, and talking vaguely about lunar rovers. No one is talking about picking a landing site; no one is talking about Mars-rated spacesuits, or how we might actually build a base from components, or how the astronauts will be chosen. Yet.

I suspect at this point, it's just too much to believe SpaceX might succeed, and to a certain extent, I understand that. If I'm the NASA administrator, I'm not about to throw away 10 years of development on SLS just because some tech wizard thinks he has a better idea. If I'm the head of [Any aerospace company]'s Space Systems Division, I'm still betting we're going to Mars with my company as the prime contractor. We'll subcontract out that detailed work just as soon as the contract is let.

But that isn't SpaceX's plan. They expect--they NEED--all these other companies to figure out what part they can do best, and to get on with it. Right now, all these companies think that "what part they can do best" is lead the show. I suspect they'll keep thinking this for about another year, assuming SpaceX stays on track. (Maybe two.) Once it becomes clear that SpaceX isn't kidding--because they're actually assembling spaceships--I'm guessing there will be a sea change, at least among some of them.

When that occurs, I'm hopeful that NASA will take lead on the change. They've pushed successfully for a fair amount of commercialization, and the people working there have to know they'll never get the budgets they need to go to Mars. Deep Space Gateway is an idea that they want to build something, and this is all they can afford. Ditto SLS. But about the time the first BFR booster does a "grasshopper" flight, I wonder if it won't be NASA's second sputnik moment.

I hope it will be, and when it happens, I hope NASA will approach the administration and Congress with a whole new way of doing space exploration.

What I really hope is that somewhere inside the bowels of the bureaucracy, there's already a small team working on that new plan.