In article , John Doe wrote:
...all four (Rocketplane Kistler K-1, SpaceX Dragon, Spacehab Apex, and
t/Space CxV) have chosen the CBM.

OK, that looks great. But In reality, since we're not even sure that CEV
will ever get off the ground, why would anyone bet their life on those
neat little ideas floating around ?

Why would you bet your life on a commercial airliner? Surely you want one
built by the government... assuming it ever got off the ground. :-)

The problems with CEV have everything to do with who's doing it, and not
much with the basic concept. The fact that the K-1 et al are *not* being
done by the government is their biggest advantage.

And when could such neat little ideas materialise ? Any chance they
would be in production and fully operational by the time the shuttle is
retired ?

Several of them think they could do just that, if adequately and promptly
funded. There's no particular reason why it should take most of a decade
to build a modernized Gemini. Gemini took four years from first sketches
to manned flights, including at least a year lost to some then-immature
technologies (notably the fuel cells) and sheer bad luck (sustained bad
weather at the Cape badly delayed the second unmanned test).

Are there any chances of HTV flying by 2010 ?

I think HTV is unlikely to be flying by then. The problem is not HTV
itself, but the requirement for an enlarged H-II to launch it. That's
going to take major new launcher-development funding, which I would say is
just not in the cards for JAXA right now.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that the work done on the HTV will be lost.
Kistler's COTS proposal uses several of the major HTV subsystems.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |