I think the reason they're mentioning Mars with respect to Orion is that there isn't really any plan at all to use Orion for anything. There's a vague proposal for an asteroid mission, and they mention that too, but it's hard to get excited about building a whole new capsule for an asteroid mission. Hence they mention Mars for lack of anything better to say to try to justify the billions spent on a capsule without a real mission.
No, the reason they are saying it's a first step to Mars is because Orion is the crew vehicle transport involved in such an architecture.
I think that Orion is part of NASA's Mars Design Reference Mission. So that's where the statements originate.
Don't forget the real purpose of Orion/SLS is to spend money in certain congressional districts by writing checks to specific corporations. Sadly, it has nothing to do space exploration.Whether you support Orion, SLS, MCT, L2 Gateway Station, etc. doesn't matter because nothing is ever going to work without more money. And I don't mean spare change. It will take several billion dollars additional funding per year to get to Mars. NASA will not get the money. Congress has allocated enough to meet their political objects. Unfortunately, it is not enough to meet any real world objectives.
Whether you support Orion, SLS, MCT, L2 Gateway Station, etc. doesn't matter because nothing is ever going to work without more money.
NASA PAO could have prepared a short video clip showing ...
Somewhere in all that talk in NASA TV on launch day someone mentioned, that the heat shield might be upgraded for reentry from Mars.The last Boeing presentation with SEP did not show Orion on the way to Mars but with an adequate heatshield the crew could return directly to earth instead of going to some L-point first.