Three options stay within current budget parameters for the next 10 years, and four are more blue sky...so to speak. But a permanent lunar base isn't looking too viable.(May need to register but NYT is free - for now)* NASA Narrows Options for Post-Shuttle Future (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/sc...*---Quote---By KENNETH CHANG (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...inline=nyt-per) Published: August 5, 2009 WASHINGTON — Where to in space? A blue-ribbon panel charged by the Obama administration to review the United States’ human spaceflight program has narrowed the options to seven. Three of the options under consideration will stay within the reduced budgets the administration is proposing for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the next decade. One essentially continues the current program of returning astronauts to the Moon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/s...nyt-classifier) — developed by the Bush administration after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003 — but gives up on the goal of getting there by 2020.A second extends the International Space Station beyond its planned demise in 2015 to at least 2020, but pushes lunar exploration even further into the future. The third makes a priority of sending astronauts out of low-Earth (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/s...nyt-classifier) orbit for the first time since the Apollo program (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/s...nyt-classifier) ended more than three decades ago.---End Quote---