New space vehicle systems aren’t built in a day (or a month, or a year or two even) …, so I’m confused about the gap in time between when the shuttle is marked for retirement (2010) and the earliest date for a replacement (2015 or later).
I don’t believe for a minute that there are no plans to have a single manned launch from 2011 through 2014.
I would guess the options are:
A.) The shuttle is set to retire but as the scuttle date nears the program gets extended because no replacement is ready, and for one reason or another (emergency repairs on ISS, or something like that) the shuttle is still needed.
B.) Some rocket + capsule program is ready to go, and will hold us over by enabling manned missions between 2011 and when the replacement is ready.
or
C.) We really have no plans to have manned missions between 2011 and 2014.

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