On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:28:12 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Once Dragon (or one of its competitors) comes online, Russia would
presumably scale back its Soyuz flights so that there is only one
Soyuz docked to the station at any given time. Between one Dragon (7
crew) and one Soyuz (3 crew) I don't see a problem with evacuating the
six people on ISS.

No, Dragon would make a great lifeboat, and remove the need for using
Orion for that mission.

That assumes Dragon will be able to stay at ISS for 180 days. Will it?
If not, it is just a taxi and we need a lifeboat.

Brian