"Jon Berndt" wrote in message
...

", what is the thoughts on what the next space
transportation vehicle should look like?

The capsule approach would have much simpler systems and would be the most
likely to meet the goal for a 2008 flight. The other designs look like mini
shuttles and are going to have fancy heat tiles and landing gear and flight
controls....that is a whole lot of extra stuff.

So....this thing is still mainly going to be used to support ISS. That is the
main reason for routine manned flight at the present time. The design phase is
budgeted at $2.8 billion, so for design and procurement we are looking at about,
wild guess, $8-10 billion. Then add the per-flight costs of say $300-400
million. Starts to get expensive. And the cargo capability is going to be a
token amount compared to the shuttle.

Would a current-technology replacement for the shuttle, retaining its cargo
capacity, not give more for the dollar? Still gets back to the question of
where do you go in the thing. For the cost of the space plane we could do a
Mars orbital mission.