Thanks for your response, but I still don't see the need for a FULL CREW return system unless you assume that the entire station is going to fail in one huge catastrophe which would require its complete abandonment.

If a crew member gets sick he can use the capsule that is attached to the station now. Yes that would leave the remaining crew members with no escape possibility, but that would only be a temporary problem until a new escape capsule was launched. What is the probability that ALL the crew members would need to evacuate at one time?

Yes it COULD happen. What is the Probability that it WOULD happen and does that probability justify delaying the science and other work that the station was supposedly designed for? If so, then maybe the anti-space crowd is right...Its to dangerous and to expensive. (I sincerely hope they are wrong because the space program is dead if they are right.)

The real problem I see is that even if a crew return vehicle is built, it will only be for 6 passengers. We are then limited to only 6 people in space at one time?

Make it 10. Are we then limited to only 10?

I think the risk of catastrophic failure is being overblown as a means of getting more money out of congress. In the meantime, the scientific work gets delayed, more money gets wasted, and NASA's budget continues to get pinched into oblivion. Astronauts are not expendable, but they should be expected to take reasonable risks. How reasonable is it to spend Billions and delay the entire space program 10 or 15 years because we must have a fail-safe ISS built around an over-designed emergency escape pod with wings and a fancy parasail. The design effort on an escape system should go on, but should it hold the entire program hostage?

How will we ever get to Mars with that mentality? There must be better alternatives that won't delay the scientific work and limit the crew size to 3.

But then maybe the Station wasn't really built for scientific purposes. Maybe it really was is just a jobs program. If the science is really worth doing, I think we need to be a little more creative, take some educated risks, and just do it.