The Stick Was Designed By A Shuttle Astronaut
He retired from NASA and was unexpectedly asked to work on a shuttle replacement by private industry. He gave a presentation on this at a Mars society conference and was very enthusiastic about the safety improvement over the shuttle. He returned to NASA to help lead the new manned program. He has since left NASA again for reasons unknown to me. I'm surprised to hear this has become unpopular with the astronauts.
Regards,
Mark