Apollo on steroids

There are similarities between the spacecraft being designed for the Constellation programme and the Apollo hardware of the 1960´s. Although some were disappointed that these 21st century spaceships owed less to the technology portrayed in ´Thunderbirds´ and ´Star Trek´ than to an era when desktop computers, mobile phones and satellite TV were themselves science-fiction, there are good engineering reasons for the apparently ´retro´ design. This paper examines the technology being used for Constellation program.