The crash, lets talk about this for a moment. The Progress crashed, not the Soyuz. Although very similar, the boosters are of different design, and since it was the booster that failed, there shouldn’t be cause for concern.

And then there is the “commercial acceleration” that is being flaunted around as a solution to the Progress crash. There is not going to be acceleration of anything. The reason for this lies in the party politics that is currently taking hold on Capital Hill. Even if money is diverted from “less” important programs, like the “SLS”, which Rohrabacher has a personal bias to dislike, it won’t speed up development of a launch vehicle because the private industry does not know how to effectively build anything space related. Money does not make a launch vehicle, it takes effective government management and time to build such a thing.

At that, it isn’t necessary to build another vehicle. Russia is reliable. The Soyuz, which wasn’t the vehicle that crashed, has a perfect record, and there has never been a death related to it. The Shuttle was flawed, over- budgeted, and suffered from partisan politics. The deal with the Russians has allowed a new era of cooperation between our two countries that has never been seen before. We can rely on the Russians because they will fix the problem with the Progress. We have already conducted joint inspections on the crash, of which we assessed the problem. Russia will have a safer Soyuz ready to fly before the ISS becomes a burden, that’s a fact. The worst thing to do at this moment would be to build another launch vehicle, private or government built. Such an act would surely prove a swipe at Russia, who has generously offered us a seat upon its space launcher. Building a vehicle is a recipe for disaster in U.S.-Russian cooperation in space, and would surely do far more damage to the ISS then us abandoning it temporarily.

The originally intended “lifeboat” for ISS was the X-38. Canceled without replacement in 2002.

SLS may be needed for beyond LEO but not ISS.

It’s not needed for beyond LEO, either.
ISS showed us that we can build large complicated spacecraft from pieces that fit on existing medium-heavy lift rockets. Since any exploration mission hoping of going further than the Moon is gonna need multiple launches anyway, why bother with a monster rocket that sucks up money and has no other use when you can use existing launchers and spend thet money on the actual spacecraft and on related projects such as robotic precursor missions and propellant depots.

SLS may be needed for beyond LEO but not ISS.

A lot of station concepts used a dedicated lifeboat based on an Apollo Capsule. As for the south pole, only a skelton crew is left behind in winter(for the most part). Most polar researchers are there during the summer only. You can in theory return crew in winter it is just that the bad weather pretty much prevents it.

It is not wise to staff a station with no way of being able to leave. STS was designed more to be a construction craft(there were plans not just to build space stations, but all sorts of space based stuff like prop depots, solar power stations, lunar/mars spacecraft). STS for lifeboat duty would have been expensive overkill.

His use of the word “daft” was a nice touch though.

“Interestingly, this was never a requirement for Station until the early 90′s; the whole Space Transportation System concept was designed without it.”

I can’t speak to the rationale some may have had when they were conceptualizing building space stations back in the 70’s and 80’s. All I know is that the rule has been to have an emergency escape system for the ISS, and right now that is Soyuz.

“We have no immediate return capability for personnel wintering at the South Pole”

True, but we also have decades of experience in building and operating in that harsh environment, as well as a large station and community to absorb localized failures. They have also assembled a large stockpile of repair material, and the conditions are far more habitable for doing major repairs than in space.

“nor would people on the way to Mars”

Why do so many people assume we’re going to Mars in small ships traveling individually, like the Apollo Moon missions?

I think we’ll travel to Mars in large ships in a convoy, with both multiple manned ships and multiple unmanned support ships – not unlike the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Maybe they won’t travel side by side, but I would have them close enough to provide support if needed.

In that configuration, you would have vehicles that could act as shuttles to move people and material between ships, and they could act as temporary escape vehicles. The expedition would still have to continue on to Mars, but at least they would have backups in case of emergencies.

People have to start thinking more like Star Trek instead of Apollo. This is the 21st Century already…

“MT represented our locale.”

I guess you’re not a real writer, since a real American would never have said that Thatcher was their PM. I would have said “while I was living in Britain, Thatcher was the PM”. But I would never say the ruler of another country was my ruler.

You may have felt subjugated by her, but then again you are easily confused…

Interestingly, this was never a requirement for Station until the early 90’s; the whole Space Transportation System concept was designed without it. We have no immediate return capability for personnel wintering at the South Pole and on similar remote expeditions, nor would people on the way to Mars. Although there have been a handful of precautionary returns of crew from Salyut or Mir, these have never been on an emergency basis.