To say NASA hasn't a clue of where to go and how to get there is wrong.

Over the last several years, NASA has been busy at work plotting its own destiny. Such confabs as NASA's internal Decadal Planning Group and the NASA Exploration Team (NExT) have blueprinted futuristic flights of fancy. NASA Headquarters has in residence its own space architect. But details as to what's on his drafting board is not clear.

That strategy is likely to be alive and well and being shared with White House space thinkers. Promoting such a vision, however, means creating "sustainable architecture", coupled to years and years of installment payments. All that translates into a "getting serious" scenario, said one NASA insider. Needless to say, that is far different than the Apollo way of doing business, the all-up, self-contained and all-expendable model.

A supporter of such an expansive agenda is former NASA space science chief, Wesley Huntress, Jr., now Director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Earlier this month, he testified before the House Committee on Science about the future of human space exploits.

Huntress testified that the International Space Station and space shuttle do not merit the risks that they entail. He said, "[I]f space explorers are to risk their lives it should be for extraordinarily challenging reasons - such as exploration of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, and for construction and servicing space telescopes - not for making 90 minute trips around the Earth. The whole point of leaving home is to go somewhere, not to endlessly circle the block."

NASA must back away from their intense focus on the station/shuttle infrastructure as make-or-break for the agency, Huntress told SPACE.com, and the imbedded notion that the ISS is a destination. Furthermore, the space agency has to abandon the notion that the station/shuttle infrastructure is on the critical path to deep space destinations, except for research on human space physiology.

"NASA will have to accept some pain, similar to the human space flight hiatus of 1975-1981 while shuttle was developed. Station development will have to be severely limited, the shuttle flown off and retired, and new simpler, less costly and less risky Earth-to-orbit transportation systems developed. This means that astronauts will not be flying as often while NASA switches to a new path," Huntress suggested.

Although the Moon is a 'been there, done that" type of world, there is interest in using it as training ground for space explorers. It's a way to regain strength in NASA's exploratory muscle, some experts suggest, even planting a permanent Moon base on the lunar landscape.

Then there is the "Mars card" to play. That is, go direct to the Red Planet. Yet there is fear this approach could add up to an expensive replay of Project Apollo. Plant and salute the flag, pick up some rocks, escape with your life, head back home and also add Mars to the been there, done that list of wonder worlds conquered.

Longtime Mars backer, Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society, is slated to testify this week before the U.S. Senate on where next NASA. Of late, however, he has viewed both the Moon and Mars as targets of opportunity, but with a caveat.

"The goal of the American space program should be humans to Mars, and a plan drawn up, and hardware built, to implement that plan, Zubrin said. "With a properly designed plan, a subset of that hardware, with modest modifications, should also be able to transport astronauts to and from the Moon. So the idea of exercising part of the hardware to do a lunar excursion preparatory to going to Mars is reasonable," he noted.

But we don't need to go to the Moon to go to Mars, Zubrin added. "The Moon is not a steppingstone to Mars, and we should not build lunar hardware on faith that it might come in handy when we get around to exploring Mars. Design for Mars, build for Mars, and exercise the flight hardware in progressive milestones that lie along the path to Mars."

The U.S. Congress has taken notice of the chorus of experts now calling for a new trajectory for NASA.

"We need to be thoughtful and deliberate and coldly analytical in putting together a vision for the future of human space flight," said Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, Chairman of the Committee on Science in the U.S. House of Representatives.

To move forward, any consensus must be arrived at jointly by the White House, the Congress and NASA, Boehlert recently said. That consensus, he added, has to include an agreement to pay for whatever vision is outlined.

A busted shuttle program is one thing. Money is forthcoming to address those concerns. But recent revelations about sending a crew to the ISS over objections of those charged with the health and wellbeing of the space travelers does not bode well for the agency. Then there is both NASA and industry confusion over the next big-ticket space project, the Orbital Space Plane (OSP).

"NASA needs to do its part by coming up with credible cost estimates and schedules for projects - something that has been sorely lacking in recent decades and something that has not been done yet for the next major human space flight project, the Orbital Space Plane," Boehlert said a few weeks ago.

On Monday, Boehlert and his Democrat colleague on the Committee on Science, Congressman Ralph Hall, served notice to NASA head, Sean O'Keefe, that he should defer the current OSP program "until the inter-agency space review is completed, approved by the President, and thoroughly vetted with the Congress."

Boehlert and Hall warned O'Keefe: "Without such consensus on a shared vision...public support for the Nation's civilian space program will inevitably founder."

All this and more is stacking up at the White House front door for space tacticians to ponder. Whether they see new milestones for America's space venture or little more than a jumble of millstones is soon to be sorted out.