[ARCADIA]

It sounds like a technological step backwards. Its no wonder that we haven't seen much about the conceptual design. Is there any new technology here or is it just a boondoggle?

[burzum]

It's not a step backwards. It's just the acknowledgment that we have hurt ourselves by focusing only on the Space Shuttle and the types of missions that it can do. The Space Shuttle can perform heavy lift operations to low earth orbit, can dock with other spacecraft, can return heavy objects from space, and can perform spacewalks.

The Space Shuttle cannot go to high earth orbit, cost effectively go to low earth orbit, perform a lunar insertion, or land on any extraterrestrial object. The technology for these missions requires a vastly different type of spacecraft than the Space Shuttle. Since these are the types of missions that will move our space program forward the fastest, we want to build a spacecraft that will perform them. For this reason we retire the Space Shuttle. The CEV program will also build a heavy lift rocket (probably just robotic) to supplement its abilities. This means that the only real capability that is lost from retiring the Space Shuttle is returning heavy objects from space, while gaining all of the capabilities I listed. Seems a wise idea to me.