On Sun, 07 Nov 2010 06:17:39 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:


STS-135 would be a four person crew: Ferguson, Hurley, Magnus, and
Walheim. It will take over a year to get everyone home on Soyuz.

A four-person crew is unnecessarily large for carrying supplies to the
ISS on a added flight; with the existing ISS crew of six, and only two
crew necessary to fly the Shuttle, that still gives you eight people
total to offload the cargo from it in a presumed added flight.

Jorge on many times has said four is the minimum crew needed for
rendezvous flights.

Minor note: Atlantis does not have SSPTS, so there will be less time
to offload the MPLM.

Brian