“Why is a 4-6 person capsule crucial to exploration?”

4-6 person is due to human factors. There are some papers by NASA, I believe AIAA that show why.

“A capsule is certainly not going to the be the optimum place for astronauts to spend their time when in space, because it’s too cramped.”

I agree. And they ended up with a gigantic Orion that goes opposite the purpose of a capsule: Small, cheap, easy.

“A capsule is one of the forms of transportation to get astronauts to & from the Earth, but why do you need to drag it around in space with you? ”

Lack of imagination and/or budget.

“Why can’t you just rendezvous with your crew return vehicle (CRV) when you get back from your mission in space?”

See above.

“We haven’t hauled capsules around in space with us since the 70′s, so why should we be going back to that?”

See above and cost/know-how.

“Dont be so myopic. That ‘mission’ can change with the stroke of a pen, the change of an administration or an event beyond national boundaries.”

Did I say it cannot change? I am arguing the cost of changing.

“A GP spacecraft is the next logical step out toward the moon and Orion is key element of that program. Perhaps you don’t see it”

I don’t, because you still haven’t answered the question.

Why is a 4-6 person capsule crucial to exploration?

A capsule is certainly not going to the be the optimum place for astronauts to spend their time when in space, because it’s too cramped.

A capsule is one of the forms of transportation to get astronauts to & from the Earth, but why do you need to drag it around in space with you? Why can’t you just rendezvous with your crew return vehicle (CRV) when you get back from your mission in space? We haven’t hauled capsules around in space with us since the 70’s, so why should we be going back to that?

NASA and contractors overlooked concepts that were “better” than the capsule design for CEV, especially in light of the land landing requirements. Abort might have been an issue: Think of the LMT concept for Phase 1, this thing would most likely never have aborted, successfully. But it did not have wings… The reason was they offered was that they did not know how to do them, or too difficult, or something like that. Too bad. The new/young engineers I am sure would have loved to work on something more exotic than a capsule. At the very least they could have said so during the Augustine Committee review that they were pushing the technology and they would have gained support from more people. They did not.

C’est la vie, right?

“ You don’t need “wings” to glide back hence the name “lifting-body””

Yes, I guess that was my inaccurate way of describing the control surfaces…

“Heck I am gonna file a patent at this pace”

In that case, I’m glad we had this discussion.

“I’ve always thought that one solution to sticking the Dream Chaser type vehicle on top of a launcher (wings in front stability issues), was to make the wings fold. ”

I believe the Russian RV that Dreamchaser (HL-20) was based upon had folding “wings/verticals”. You don’t need “wings” to glide back hence the name “lifting-body”. You do need stability though but it can be achieved to some extent without wings. Especially if you have thrusters…

Heck I am gonna file a patent at this pace

“If I am not mistaken BO and the Russians are looking at concepts to land powered like DC-X. So we’ll see about Earth maybe soonr rather than later.”

From a design standpoint, I have never had a lot of faith in the ability of DC-X type vehicles to overcome the physics of getting to space as an SSTO, much less carry enough fuel to land vertically. Maybe it works for a small payload, but the energy requirements seem to exceed the ability of the vehicles to carry them.

For landing, what I’ve always liked about landing horizontally with wings is that it takes little fuel. With good energy management, all you need is power to operate the vehicle controls (ala the Shuttle). This seems so much more energy efficient than powered landings (on Earth anyways), and the fuel weight can be traded for payload. There is the trade-off in carrying your wings with you, but with vehicles like Dream Chaser (lifting bodies), that is kind of minimized.

Extending this thought out a little bit more, I’ve always thought that one solution to sticking the Dream Chaser type vehicle on top of a launcher (wings in front stability issues), was to make the wings fold. We have lots of experience with aircraft that have folding wings (and take lots of abuse with carrier landings). Maybe the weight trade-off for SSTO would work if they could glide back? Of course computer correction of the flight surfaces may make this a moot point, and keep the whole thing simpler with non-folding wings.

If I am not mistaken BO and the Russians are looking at concepts to land powered like DC-X. So we’ll see about Earth maybe soonr rather than later.

Wings on Mars, well, nah. I mention DC-X because f you can make this work it is applicable to a lot of different planetary entries. Rather than wings… Or wings alone.