On 4/16/2010 4:51 PM, Neil Fraser wrote:

Ok, given the scenario where Dragon/Falcon (and all competition flops)
then what's the point of the Orion Lite lifeboat? The astronauts
would have had to come up on a Soyuz -- which would therefore be
docked and serving lifeboat duty. The only need I can see for a
dedicated lifeboat is if the vehicle which brings the crew to ISS in
the first place is unable to hang around in space for six months. The
Space shuttle is the only such vehicle.

That's certainly the situation in a nutshell.
Soyuz has to be the "Jeep" of spacecraft, it's not ideal for any
particular task, but incredibly adaptable and versatile enough to
perform a whole plethora* of missions fairly well.

* Triple word score...I think that is the second or third time I've used
that word in writing in my entire life. The sucker has just been sitting
around in the back of my vocabulary, getting more covered in cobwebs and
dust as the decades moved on. ;-)

Pat

Pat