Concept diagram of command module configurations | Command module design | Forum

Obviously if we went with this approach we would want to design a completely standard attachment and separation mechanism for modules to stack behind the CM.  This way we could come up with entirely new module ideas years later and have them work just fine with existing CLLARE hardware (although I'm not sure what other modules we may come up with – maybe scientific payloads?).

This presents us with a rather solid and tractable engineering problem that people can sink their teeth into right off the bat.  Once we specify the diameter of the CM people can just start working on this with minimal other information.  Obviously the Gemini familiarisation manual would be a good place to look for ideas although, as always, we should innovate if we can.

Rocket-To-The-Moon said:

We will also have to give considerable thought about how everything will be routed between the CM and the support modules.

This will definitely be a challenge.  It would be awesome if we could come up with a sufficiently general solution that we could attach multiple extension modules and buses to a single CM, although not necessary by any means.