Well, There Seems To Be A Compromise After All

Obama revives capsule from canceled moon program, AP
“President Barack Obama is reviving the NASA crew capsule concept that he had canceled with the rest of the moon program earlier this year, in a move that will mean more jobs and less reliance on the Russians, officials said Tuesday. The space capsule, called Orion, still won’t go to the moon. It will go unmanned to the International Space Station to standby as an emergency vehicle to return astronauts home, officials said. Administration officials also said NASA will speed up development of a massive rocket. It would have the power to blast crew and cargo far from Earth, although no destination has been chosen yet. The rocket would be ready to launch several years earlier than under the old moon plan.”
Is A Human Space Flight Compromise Emerging?, NASA Watch, earlier post
“This is the consensus that seems to forming in and among NASA, OSTP, and NSC: Ares 1 and 5 remain cancelled. Orion is continued – but in a “Lite” variant designed to ferry people to and from ISS. This “Orion Lite” would fly on human-rated EELVs and would be, in essence, a government competitor to what NASA is also encouraging the so-called “Merchant 7″ (SpaceX, Orbital et al) to develop. The commercial activities would remain unchanged from what was announced in February. Meanwhile, NASA will continue to fly the Space Shuttle albeit at a stretched out rate (2 or so flights/year) while ET production is restarted.”