Very few generals majored in any of the hard sciences, as working with people is much more a form of social art than it is about science.

Unfortunately, while scientists do have access, in the form of advisors, they have very little real power, and no veto authority to put the kabosh on a decidedly undesirable course of action.

Give the group a 2/3 annonymous vote-required veto authority over whom they're advising, however, and the next thing you'll see are changes to legislation which does away with that veto authority.

This is the same reason why line-item veto proposals never make it out of Congress.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.