Yeah, I think this needs to come back to NASA now that Constellation has been ahem... euthanized. Frankly I think backing out of reusable vehicles in Constellation was a fairly dumb idea too (not for the moon shot perhaps, but for LEO activity for sure) - the US needs a 2nd-generation shuttle, and I think that's the moral of the story here. Watch out or the Russians will beat you to that one again (they have similar mini-shuttle projects in development).
Still kind of sad that the 40-something year old Soyuz is again about to become the "premiere" system for keeping man in LEO.
