Jim Oberg has an interesting take on MSNBC today on why commercial space taxis may be easier to build than many people think. He points out that with the decision to use Orion technology to build a Crew Return Vehicle, for example, the commercial taxis will not have to be designed with an on-orbit dwell time of six months as do Russia’s Soyuz. spacecraft. They have a relatively simple and straightfoward mission and, he argues, the spacecraft could be “spartan” from a comfort perspective — like food.