It was a step in the right direction, yes, but it was not funded properly. Cancelling Constellation was the right move under the circumstances. Additionally, there were serious questions about the vehicles being designed then (the Ares-line) as there still are about the current development of the SLS heavy-lifter. Namely, they were designed by committee and heavily politicized rather than simply handing money to the best engineers in the business to build a rocket however they saw fit.
Don't get me wrong -- I WISH we could commit to a program like that, but at the moment our space program is simply being pulled in too many directions with congress and the president continually changing the goal. Sometimes it's mars, sometimes it's the moon then mars, sometimes it's getting an asteroid, sometimes it's supporting commercial exploration. Right now the President is pushing us towards an asteroid retrieval program which is probably doable with current funding, but Congress absolutely hates it to the point of trying to prohibit NASA spending any money on it. It's such a mess, and it's the fault of an overly bureaucratic agency and insufficient funding for something like a mission to mars, not to mention new administrations that change plans every few years.
What I'm getting at is that we as a nation need to come together to urge the government to support manned space exploration and to do it right. Using the tired old refrain of "oh, it's Obama's fault" takes away from the real issue and just makes everybody get defensive and polarized, which is exactly why nothing gets done either way. I'm with you that it's a damn shame we can't get to the moon, but not that it's as simple as Obama's fault.
