Nibb31

No it wasn't. The V1 splashed down and needed to be recovered by a salvage ship. The V1 didn't have the SuperDracos and expanded tanks for launch abort and landing. It didn't have landing legs. It had parachute mounting points and a CBM where the NDS had to go. It also had a compartment for the RMS grappling fixture which is not needed on the V2. Add all of those things for manned vehicle, and you have to redesign the entire spacecraft. Which is what they did. Hence the V2.

Most of it is as expected. I was surprised by the new trunk. It has fins to stabilise the vehicle during an abort, which makes it a bit like the Soyuz fairing. The stuck-on solar panels seem a bit suboptimal to me. They must be much cheaper than the mechanical unfolding ones for Dragon V1, but they also expose much less surface to the sun. Also, while it is docked at the ISS, most of it will be in the shade most of the time. I guess it's ok for trickle charging. I was also surprised that the NDS docking port seems to be a bit off-center. Also, the opening nose cone doesn't seem to open up more than 90°, which seems a bit tight clearance with the PMA and you couldn't dock two Dragons head-to-head. I expected the nose cone to have a full 180° hinge to fully clear the NDS. I would expect the final interior to have some sort of padding material. Even the cargo version goes up with insulation/padding blankets on the walls. You wouldn't want to bang your head in zero-g against that ribbed metal, and some folks first experience of floating in zero-g will be inside the Dragon.

And the quick 2 minute flight profile video: http://youtu.be/Cf_-g3UWQ04

Tesla isn't the only car manufacturer that does electric vehicles. Just about every European maker has one or two electric cars. They are getting popular to the point where two of my co-workers have one, a Renault Zoe and a Nissan Leaf. They are much cheaper to run than petrol/gas/diesel cars for their daily commute, which is 90% of what most people use their car for. Plus, they are fun to drive because electric motors have instant torque.

Why would gravity be gone ? When you're in orbit, gravity is still there. As a KSP player, you should know that there is no such thing as a straight line in space. That's gravity working. Everything is in some kind of orbit and there is no range limit. If you fire a projectile in space it will continue on its own orbit until it hits something. That might happen anywhere between 10 seconds and never. If you want it to hit a target, you need to insert your projectile into an orbit that intersects with your target. As such, it's much more practical to dispatch a smart weapon with its own propulsion, RCS and autonomous rendez-vous capability than to fire dumb slugs with a cannon. Getting your capital ship up close and personal with a target is also a rendezvous. As a KSP player, you should know how hard it is to rendezvous with a target. In reality, it would take several burns to catch up with a target, to approach, and to cancel relative speed so that you could fire at a target. This is practically impossible if the target is actively evading the rendezvous. The two opponents would basically chase themselves around a planet forever. The first ship that runs out of fuel loses. If it is science fiction, then you can just use any technobabble to justify whatever magic you want your science fiction plot to support. No need for a debate.

What the OP proposes is effectively a wet lab workshop. It looks like a good idea on the surface, to reuse large tankage volumes by converting them into habitations, but when you get down into the engineering details, it's not practical at all. Which is why all of those proposals were cancelled. First of all, you need more than volume to make a decent hab module. You need shielding, life support, furniture, equipment, fixtures, airlocks, hatches, power outlets, cables, fluid pipes, air ducts... While some of these things can be submerged into LH2 or LOX, most of them can't. You would need to carry most of the equipment in a separate module. Stuff that can go inside the tank is going to use up a lot of volume and add a lot of weight to the design. And then there is the problem of venting the tank from any residuals, the problem of how do you send the equipment that goes inside the hab module, and the problem of doing all the conversion work and outfitting all that equipment. In the end, it is much more practical to do all that outfitting work on the ground in a module that is purpose built as a hab module and to let the crew concentrate on the actual mission.

The last Titan IV booster flew in 2005. It was phased out mainly because it was super expensive and its propellants were really nasty stuff.

Well, you can count the number of published scientific papers that used the results from each mission. That gives you a quantitative measure. It's harder to get a qualitative measure.

Docking is easier on the orbital vector. That's how it's done in real life. They even rotate the ISS so that the docking ports face retrograde. Approaching from above or below means that you are effectively in a different orbit with a different speed, which complicates things.

Aren't robotic probes built and driven by humans? It's senseless to oppose them. They are just extension tools for us humans to interact with an environment where we cannot go.

The best combination IMO, is something like the Chevy Volt: an electric vehicle with a small combustion generator to recharge on the go.

None of those things are "CURRENT technology".

No DRM will use SpaceX, Bigelow, or DreamChaser. The point of these DRMs is to demonstrate mission architectures using either NASA assets or notional vehicles that are yet to be conceptualized. They are political documents aimed at lawmakers in order to get funding for NASA, not detailed feasibility studies. Demonstrating a DRM that doesn't use SLS and Orion for all phases of the mission goes against that notion. Additionally, all current plans for SLS exploration missions include SEP tugs and a DSH. There are two concepts for a DSH: either MPLM-based or the Skylab-dry-lab concept. You don't need Bigelow inflatables when you can launch a 10m diameter upper stage in one go.

Most of those are not "Current" technology. When evaluating various technological solutions to a problem, you need to take into account the concept of Technological Readiness Level. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level In your list, only SpaceX's landing technology is "current" tech at TRL 6-7. The others are TRL 1-2 at best. Most of the time, the reason we are not developing new launch systems is because they don't make sense economically. The entire world launch industry is scaled to perform 10 to 30 orbital launches per year. That is not because launches are expensive. It's because there is no demand for more frequent orbital launches, and the current "sweet spot" is where it is. Trade studies are done all the time, but the infrastructure and research investments simply don't make sense with any current or foreseeable launch rates.

Because Ares I was a bad idea. The main reason Constellation was scrapped was because Ares I didn't work.

SLS is actually heavier than Ares V. The problem is that there is no crew-only to LEO configuration like Ares I. To launch a 20 ton Orion alone is a waste, so you have to combine it with a 50 to 70 ton module. So basically, you have to rearrange the assembly of your MTV to suit a different launch vehicle. I'm not saying it's not possible or that it's harder. I'm simply saying that these DRMs are obsolete.

The DRM 5.0 used Constellation assets, which are gone too. Using SLS to launch the crew forces you to launch Orion with at least some other payload module (the hab, the lander or something else), so the launches would have to be rearranged. Inflatables and NTR seem to have fallen out of interest these days, and I doubt the political climate will ever allow nuclear rockets in the foreseeable future. NASA plans are all about solar-electric propulsion these days, so any new DRM would probably incorporate a SEP module with either the DSH or a 10m "Skylab 2" architecture for the hab. Anyway, there isn't much point in updating these studies, because there certainly isn't any money to implement a 15 year plan like this.

There's no reason you can't do a pinpoint vertical landing. In fact, that's what SpaceX and Boeing are going to do. You're right about the G-forces, but it's not worse than some rollercoasters than achieve 4 to 6 g. If you're not fit to ride in this, then you shouldn't be going to space in the first place: http://youtu.be/cu2WnGRJT8k

Well we pretty much agree then. Your definition is that of any generic reusable spacecraft. That's ok, and I guess it's an idea that makes sense*. The Space Shuttleâ„¢ was an implementation of that idea. That implementation was fundamentally flawed. * It's an idea that makes sense only if the economical environment makes it worthwhile to sustain a high enough launch rate. If you don't have enough payloads or customers, then a reusability is not economically viable.

How could you make a winged spacecraft not as complex as an equivalent non-winged spacecraft? If you can figure a way to add wings, landing gear, and hydraulics without adding weight, then surely the same technology could be used to make non-winged spacecraft even lighter. The Shuttle's side-mount architecture was part of its fundamental design. If it wasn't side-mounted, then it wouldn't have been the Space Shuttle but some other vehicle. You really need to clarify what you understand by "the Space Shuttle concept". For me, the Space Shuttle concept was the Vertical-Takeoff-Horizontal-Landing that NASA designed, which I think was a flawed concept. The main advantage of gliding to a landing was that it looked cool, and all through the 1970's, people were influenced by Buck Rogers and Star Wars. That is the main reason for wanting wings. Powered landings were envisioned ever since people started dreaming about rockets. Look at some early 20th century sci-fi. Vertical landing was studied extensively with a whole bunch of experimental aircraft ever since the Convair XFY-1 all the way to Apollo LM.

No the concept of a winged spacecraft is flawed. The wings, the landing gear and the hydraulics are all heavy, complex, and unnecessary. The concept of a side-mounted launch vehicle is flawed. It adds a whole new set of failure modes and the thrust vectoring is inefficient.

Of course we know about it. Every space geek has known about it for years. Yes, it's reusable, but it's still functionally just a fancy reusable capsule on top of a disposable rocket. You still have to throw away the engines and tanks on each flight. The CST-100 capsule and Dragon capsule are also reusable, but the capsule is just a small part the vehicle. The big economical incentive comes from recovering the engines, not the crew compartment. There is also the question of the cost to check and refurbish the vehicle between each flight. A spacecraft goes through a lot of physical stress: launch loads, landing loads, tanking, thermal cycles... The CST-100 for example is supposedly rated for 10 flights. Dragon is probably similar depending on required maintenance and engine rotations. We don't know how many times DreamChaser or any other spacecraft can be reused until the vehicles are thoroughly inspected after the first few flights.

This. However, even if FTL is a condition for us, it might not be for some other lifeform. Even with FTL, a civilization where individuals have a lifespan of 2 years has no chance of ever reaching another star without generation ships. And a civilization of 100-meter tall giants with a lifespan of 5000 years could colonize other solar systems without FTL.

Unfortunately hydrogen is not practical as an everyday fuel. It's hazardous to handle and hard to contain it at ambient temperatures. You need cryogenics to store it in a liquid state and a beefy pressure vessel, which is expensive, heavy and power consuming. You won't ever see widespread use of hydrogen in consumer-grade vehicles.

Define "best". If the "best" way is not feasible, practical or realistic, then I'm afraid it doesn't qualify as "best". It's going to take a huge effort to break away from burning stuff, because our entire economical infrastructure is based on it. To some extent, rebuilding our infrastructure is a huge economical opportunity. But on the the other hand, capitalism (and humanity in general) doesn't fair well with long-term investment strategies. The only thing that will make us drop oil is when oil becomes too expensive to still turn profit. That time has probably come already, which is one of the reasons the economy is tanking. As long as corporations can wring the slightest drop of profit out of an asset, they will. As long as they can cut other costs that are cheaper and easier to do, they will.