Thats too easy! I predict that we will hear that crying from the naysayers as soon as the formal plan is announced!

Nobody will ever be 100% happy. NASA has to walk a fine line between developing all-new technolgies and building on old technologies.

When it comes to man-rated spacecraft, it is probably not the best idea to completely re-write the book on how to get 'er done. This is especially true when the (3) shuttle fleet is to be phased-down and phased-out in the very near future. We'll be seriously lucky if we can get 3 missions a year out of the current fleet. Barely enough to kep up our scaled back commitments to the ISS. If we lost another shuttle the manned space program would be all but dead. In otherwords, its emergency time...

We don't have the time or the money to completely redesign the system from the ground-up. NASA therefore has to take what they've already got, redesign the most critical structural components, and weakest links in the current progam, using what been learned over the last 30+ years of shuttle design, maintenence, and operations, while also salvaging what can be salvaged from the current shuttle program (vendors, engineers, engines, fuel systems, life support systems, launch pads, crawlers, communications equipment, assemby buildings, etc...)

The new vehicle will still look and perform much differently than the shuttle no matter how much shuttle technolgy is able to be applied to the new vehicle design, and in that sense it will be an "all new" vehicle no matter what any critics say.

Scott Evil

P.S. I love the idea of having a cargo-only configuration so that the new vehicle can be put through its paces on working test-flights long before it is launched with an actual crew on board. Once the new system is even marginally man-rated, I would expect the shuttle program to be more-or-less scrapped with all pending missions suspended permenantly with maybe one or two exceptions.