MPCV

NASA's MPCV makes good use of the work done on Orion but water landing seems to me to be a step backward.  I would also add something like Soyuz's orbital compartment.  But that could be added later and launched separately.

Progress

It is difficult to define progress.  If the values of each individual human can be averaged or summed and so extended to all of society then what is desired is long life for the individuals (i.e. an increasing average life expectancy) and a growing population. (See my Theories of Value Change, Trans. Kansas Academy of Sci., 2006 and my blog of 21 Sept. 2010)  If this is the correct definiton of progress then resource limits would demand that mankind soon expand into space.
The situation could be improved if humans could be replaced by nanoscale artificial intelligences. (see google group sci.space.tech , 15 March 1999, R. Jones)
(Life's "purpose" is to perpetuate and expand itself.)

7 Careers

Carl Bialik in The Wall Street Journal (3 Sept. 2010) cites 7 as the likely number of careers one will have in a working lifetime.  I note that is just the number I've had: http://www.robert-w-jones.com/
(And the average career lasts more than 5 but less than 8 years.)