Available here. There will be more detailed discussion later, either by me or Rand.

One point that stands out is the picture of Mars on the cover. I for one am sick of Mars. It’s “Moon, Mars, and Beyond”. Mars is a middle step, and it’s one that provides enemies of the President and opponents of manned spaceflight with a convenient straw man to knock down. Frankly, I’d much rather see flights to NEAs before Mars, but the sex appeal of Mars for some outweighs other considerations. It’s just a cover, and you can’t judge a book, blah, blah,blah, but really, folks: we have a perfectly good planetessimal only a couple of days travel time from Earth, and a bunch of others equally accessible passing through the neighborhood all the time. Is it too much to ask that we focus our attention on the next step instead of the step after the step after the step after…?

On the plus side, a quick read through suggests the commission does have their collective head screwed on fairly straight. But the person who picked the cover picture should be slapped around a little.

Update a few minutes later: Yes, I saw the little chunk of moon at the bottom of the cover. It’s a nice image, standing on the moon looking at Mars (ignoring the scale issues). Still, the cover to me says Mars is the objective, which it shouldn’t be. There’s a better image a few pages into the report, showing not just Mars, but also earth and some of the gas giants. I particularly like the Gas giant pictures, because nobody has a serious plan for making them part of the program. It’s a straightforward acknowledgement that we really don’t know what the later steps of the process will be.

[Update in the evening]

Here’s a link to a follow-up discussion post, for those who’ve been linked to this post from elsewhere.