hop wrote:
Incidently, the Soyouz 2B gives an extra 1000kg to LEO from Baikonur,
which should be plenty for extra heat sheild that the seemingly
implausible CSI http://www.constellationservices.com/ plan would
require. Hmmm...

I was under the impression that the Soyuz had lower
performance now than it used to, as the Soviets used
to use Sintin rather than stock Kerosene. The
Russians ran out of money to keep Sintin production
running sometime in the mid '90s.