> <i><font color="yellow">This article contains a lot of new information with regard to ACTS</font>/i><br /><br />I found the following quotes interesting:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>During the last 6 months, the collaboration led to a change in design from the Clipper, a spacecraft designed for jaunts to the ISS, to a more Moon-friendly capsule type spacecraft. "Clipper is a nice concept, but it is more suitable for missions to low Earth orbit, like the ISS," says Valls. "Being a winged vehicle and coming in for reentry from low Earth orbit it [would do] what the shuttle does. But if you think of missions beyond low Earth orbit, to the Moon and beyond, you need to solve the issue of direct reentry from those long distances. Therefore, we agreed to explore with the Russians a vehicle concept able to safely conduct missions to the Moon and beyond, and reenter dynamically to Earth. We reached the conclusion that we should focus on a capsule type vehicle as opposed to a winged vehicle. Accordingly, the vehicle architecture of the ACTS vehicle is different from the Clipper."<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />This follows a lot of the debates on these boards over the last 1-2 years: capsule versus winged vehicle. This decision appears again to validate a capsule for beyond-LEO missions.<br /><br />The second point is that ESA is seriously thinking about the Moon too. Three years ago no one was thinking seriously about manned missions to the Moon. Today, virtually everyone is thinking about the Moon. This is a remarkable change.<br /><br />The third point is that (from this admittedly limited quote), ESA may be psychologically putting the ISS behind it. ESA has dismissed the Kliper, a cheaper, more capable spacecraft to service ISS. It should prove interesting to see where ESA invests its dollars for manned missions in the next several years.</i>