New here to answers: Why use old style Apollo technology

Why is NASA going back to the old Apollo style capsule, when a lifting body body is safe and reusable? I wondered if it was a purely cost thing. But having ships at sea to recover this capsule seems rather costly. Could not a lifting body that carries crew fit atop a heavy lift vehicle and still go into deep space?

I am starting next year my first year major in aeronautical engineering.

There are private groups about to use lifting bodies and NASA has given, I believe, 5 contracts to these private enterprises. I happen to know two of these groups are using lifting bodies to enter low-orbit-orbit. I'm not quite sure how useful a lifting body would be useful going to Mars, even though the Mars atmosphere is thin, and, in that case a lifting body would need a huge wingspan to land on the surface, and would, in any case, need a runway.

mmalky

Sierra Nevada, a company that NASA has contracted with for Commercial Crew development activities, is developing a lifting body capsule based off of the HL-20 design and is planning on launching it attached to an Atlas V launch vehicle. Reusing old designs with new technology.

1. The shuttle, to which you refer, proved unsafe.
2. While a lifting body can be made safe, the economics of lifting
the extra mass required, at the traffic levels now common, just doesn't work.

You're confusing technology with design. The general design of the new manned lunar landing system looks about the same as the older Apollo system, but the technology being used is widely different.