"Alan Erskine" wrote in message ...
"Kerry Ferrand" wrote in message
. nz...

Many years ago now when the ATV was first being thought out there was a
design called "CTV" that used the ATV craft with a manned capsule
instead of the cargo section. The capsule was a scaled up version of the
ARD demonstrator that eventually flew on the second (I think..) Ariane 5
flight.

Yeah, the second successful flight. Third if you count the failed first
launch with the Cluster sats.

That sounds a lot like the Saturn 1B Apollo CSM. I wonder if the
capabilities are also similar. Interesting....

ARD (Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator) was based on the Apollo capsule
shape so that was to be expected:
http://www.estec.esa.int/spaceflight/ard.htm

Here's some pics:
http://tinyurl.com/45vjp

After the Hermes mini-shuttle boondoggle, ESA decided to take baby steps.
ARD was a subscale testbed for reentry technologies.

The CTV was meant to be a crewed capsule vehicle for transport to the ISS,
but seemingly it got axed because it wasn't, uh, using sufficiently advanced
technology, whatever that means (what's wrong with using stuff that just
plain works?):
http://astronautix.com/craft/esaacrv.htm

So money was diverted to a cooperative project with the US instead (X-38 CRV):
http://esapub.esrin.esa.it/bulletin/bullet101/graf.pdf

Which, of course, got axed because of ISS cost overruns. The latest I've heard
about reentry technology from ESA was the EXPERT test vehicle:
http://esapub.esrin.esa.it/bulletin/.../page42-49.pdf

I remember other research work done in the Netherlands involving active
cooling using water evaporation:
http://www.vm.lr.tudelft.nl/educatio...ects.php?id=13

All of this technology is meant to be used in future vehicles, but I wouldn't
expect much. The real problem seems to be a lack of clear objectives and the
appropriate funding.