<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Well it takes time to spend 2 billion Euro, even if you have everything already.No seriously I suppose it must have to do with developing the infrastructure on Earth for manned space flight, training camps and such. The tentative scheduling is: 2013 unmanned returnable vehicle, 2017, manned returnable vehicle. But even so it does seem somewhat longish: if we look back to the first satellite (1957) and first man is space (1961), it took only 4 years to go from no sapce capability to man in space. Were those different times? <br /> Posted by keermalec</DIV></p><p>I am hoping the time is spent to prepare for a moonshot aswell. In case there is a paradigm shift in NASA, and the moon program gets canned (which I hope won't happen), ESA could take the lead in the moonshot department with the new vehicle.</p><p>This could become the plan-B to get to the moon by the ballpark of 2020. That is always good to have. </p><p>With the recent success of ATV, all sorts of ideas are literally flying at ESA and also the human spaceflight seems to be picking up in the media aswell. </p>