It is interesting that they have (or atleast someone has) considered it as a crew return vehicle for a Solar Electric Propelled Manned Mars Mission. Interesting graphical conceptions...
I think a minishuttle is not a bad way to go for transporting crews and small high value cargoes to and from Earth---although a ballistic capsule is tough to beat for reliability. And a good, robust design (like the Apollo capsule) is hard to improve on.
Despite the enormous size of the solar arrays, I suspect that the proposed Mars mission vehicle would be of the long trip time type (Hohman transfer orbit, at best -- due to very low departure acceleration and arrival deceleration). Yet the crew quarters are apparently quite small -- certainly not of the rotating artificial gravity type. Having ~6 people confined in such a small volume for the better part of a year seems like a nighmare !
Of course if some way of achieving suspended animation were to be found, then that would be a whole different story.....
