On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:31:03 -0500, John Doe wrote:

After the couple of camping trips to the moon to prove the USA can still
do it, CEV will be useless unless it can be used as a ferry to some
orbiting structure.

Really, Mezei? Have you read the following (courtesy of NASA Watch):

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.05.PDF

While the CEV design was sized for lunar missions carrying a crew
of four, the vehicle was also designed to be reconfigurable to
accommodate up to six crew for International Space Station (ISS)
and future Mars mission scenarios. The CEV can transfer and return
crew and cargo to the ISS and stay for 6 months in a quiescent
state for emergency crew return. The lunar CEV design has direct
applications to International Space Station (ISS) missions without
significant changes in the vehicle design. The lunar and ISS
configurations share the same Service Module (SM), but the ISS
mission has much lower delta-V requirements. Hence, the SM
propellant tanks can be loaded with additional propellant for
ISS missions to provide benefits in launch aborts, on-orbit
phasing, and ISS reboost. Other vehicle block derivatives
can deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the ISS.

Now, that's what the document says. If you can state technically why this
is wrong, please do so. Your one arm waving argument is not a valid
technical rationale.

Happy New Year!


--
rk, Just an OldEngineer
"The number of people having any connection with the project must be
restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people."
-- Kelly Johnson in Skunk Works