OSP was a replacement in asmuch as a crew vehicle to ISS that was supposed to be separate from the cargo vehicle. The OSP did not really die it was changed into the CEV. The Phase 1 of the CEV under O’Keefe really was nothing but an improved OSP, at least initially.

Aremis

OSP died when it was decided to cancel the Shuttle, so there was no plan to replace it. And even OSP wouldn't be a replacement. The Shuttle, in terms of all its functionality, will never be replaced by any single system, and never should be.

Translunar/transplanetary cargo costs a heck of a lot more than astronauts. We have lots of astronauts.

Plus, the Aries 1/ Orion crew excursion vehicle has a launch escape system attached to the top of the CEV. In the event of a rocket breakup at launch or during most of the ascent, the crew can be saved by this piece of infrastructure. Misguided people, like Buzz Aldrin, have been denouncing this part of the Constellation plan; and they are wrong in their conclusions!

If you’re going to pathetically attempt to defend this program, you might at least learn how to spell it. There is no proposed crew delivery system that doesn’t have a launch abort system planned for it, so this doesn’t distinguish Ares/Orion in any way, other than that theirs has to be much heavier, more complex and mores expensive, because it has to be designed to out run an out-of-control or exploding solid rocket booster that can’t be shut down.

And can you provide a citation from Buzz in which he objected to having a crew escape system? Or are you just making that up?

Setting aside the historical accuracy of this, the scenario you described is not perfectly logical. Ares I is expected to be ready by about 2019, and private industry by 2016 at the latest, according to the Augustine Committee assessment. With multiple commercial competitors instead of all eggs in the Ares I basket, and with an ability to focus on the job at hand (no need for CRV requirements, no need for lunar requirements, no need to deal with civil service rules, no need for layers of oversight and undersight for tracking cost-plus spending, etc), commercial crew has lots of other advantages over the risky Ares I/Orion plan. If anything, the switch to private industry should reduce the calls to extend the shuttle according to this scenario.

“There was no planned replacement of the Shuttle (in terms of getting crew to orbit) for three to four years after the end of the Shuttle (2014, when the CEV was supposed to be available, and hence, the gap). ”

Well not really. There was plans for OSP first before CEV and “This early version of the plane had been expected to enter service by 2010.” AND the original O’Keefe/contractors plans were also looking at EELVs for CEV as a direct consequence of OSP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Space_Plane

No, the Shuttle was supposed to end because it was viewed as unsafe and too expensive to continue. That’s why it ended in 2010, after the planned ISS completion. Ares I didn’t exist, even in the minds of the policy makers, at the time of the decision to end Shuttle, in early 2004. There was no planned replacement of the Shuttle (in terms of getting crew to orbit) for three to four years after the end of the Shuttle (2014, when the CEV was supposed to be available, and hence, the gap). The flawed decision to build an expensive and unnecessary new launch system,, Ares I, just lengthened the gap.

But don’t let reality get in the way of your ignorance of history.