"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in

It will have a program (one 'm', no 'e'), albeit one on stand-down
until the new vehicle is ready to fly.

Maybe not so long a standdown, either:

From http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-04-12-145.cfm:

"Mr. Griffin, who currently heads the space department of Johns Hopkins
University's Applied Physics Laboratory, ridiculed the 2014 target date for
completing development of the next-generation U.S. space vessel, known as
the Crew Exploration Vehicle. He noted the target leaves a four-year gap
between the end of the space shuttle program and the launch of the new
vehicle, a gap during which the United States would have to rely on Russian
vessels for human access to space."

From
http://www.flatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dl...2/1007/news02:

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's current timeline calls
for the shuttles to be retired in 2010, five years before a new craft,
currently designated as the Crew Exploration Vehicle, will be available.
Griffin, who worked previously as NASA's chief engineer and associate
administrator for space exploration, said there is no reason why it should
take so long.

"It seems unacceptable to me," Griffin said, noting NASA developed the
Gemini spacecraft in just more than three years and the Apollo vehicles in
about six years."