Pardon me for intruding...and Shuttle_guy, I'd still like your input, please...<br /><br />I would suspect the ET will be going just under orbital velocity as it does now. My understanding, from two talks delivered at the 8th Mars Society Conference last week, one by Dr. Scott Horowitz, formerly an astronaut and now working for ATK-Thiokol, and by Chris Shank, Special Assistant to Mike Griffin, about the only things to be recovered from the SDHLV will be the SRB's. That will apply to the "Stick" (launching the CRV and the CEV) as well. There may be a development contract for larger parachutes for the SRB's to cut water impact velocities, which still can do a fair amount of damage to the aft skirts.<br /><br />BTW, the "Stick" is pretty well THE design chosen for the CRV/CEV launches until the ISS is finished, and probably after that for crew "yo-yo".<br /><br />With a non-recoverable cargo module, you don't have to worry about foam/ice impacts on the module. They probably don't cause significant damage on the way UP. And since the cargo mod will be de-orbited and dumped in the ocean, who cares if they can't re-enter?<br /><br />Exact configurations of the vehicles are still TBD. Thought is to make SSME's for single use only will cut the manufacturing costs, and improve reliability, since you can use weight penalties now required to make them re-usable for beefed up one-time-use main components.<br /><br />Nothing like re-inventing the wheel!<br /><br />Eventually, there could be a stickly in-line HLLV, for moon and Mars exploration.<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!<br />Trailrider