The problem I think is the current level of funding for COTS and an immediate competition to the current Constellation’s Ares/Orion. If NASA wants to see progress it will have to defer LEO and possibly the Moon to COTS like program. Still, NASA will provide necessary support and technology transfer to COTS to keep some employed. At the same time NASA would pursue the real difficult task of Solar System settlement using available budget and a combination of all talents available to them. This is long term, this is much like VSE in spirit and should be done. Is there risk? You bet there is but some of those risks can be mitigated and not that different from those found by Ares/Orion. The overall result would be a lot less expensive program to go back to the Moon with the added benefit of public/commercial access.

It depends on how the EELV route is pursued (if it is pursued). NASA could just expand COTS funding and let EELV-based solutions (e.g., ULA’s Atlas V/CTV for Bigelow) compete in future COTS solicitations. Or, if NASA wants to maintain more control, NASA could procure EELVs for Orion separately from COTS. Either way, given that COTS represents a better way of doing business that has attracted a lot of new industry entrants, I agree that COTS should be continued/expanded, regardless of whether EELVs are part of or separate from COTS. (I personally prefer the former, but that’s just me.)

“I believe COTS is part of Exploration, not Constellation (?).”

COTS is under Constellation, but has its own project manager and a very different development and procurement approach than the other Constellation projects.

“COTS is the immediate future that should get more attention.”

More to the point, with Ares I/Orion receding over the horizon and the Obama Administration’s decision to maintain Shuttle shutdown in 2010, COTS is now in the critical path to maintaining a six-person ISS crew for the five-year plus interim and having much hope of a U.S. crew transport capability for ISS. Without COTS, NASA doesn’t have access to enough upmass to keep ISS crewed with six astronauts, and probably won’t have a U.S. crew transport capability until 2016-17 at the earliest (absent Augustine recommending an EELV solution).

FWIW…

Not that you are actually stating the contray – hmm did I just make sense or not? – but no matter if NASA goes the EELV route NASA MUST ensure a properly funded COTS(-D) program. I believe COTS is part of Exploration, not Constellation (?). COTS is the immediate future that should get more attention.