of the valve between the center lines of the respective valve posts together forming a right cylinder of the inside diameter of the valve as discussed above with respect to the preferred embodiment the construction would be of a polymer and spring steel composite furthermore as discussed above with respect to the preferred embodiment the distance 127 between the ring 114 and the lowermost portion 131 of each of the scalloped rings would be maintained by providing the base ring 114 with two rises 132 along its length as in the preferred embodiment intermediate each rise 132 there is included a dip 133 wherein each dip 133 corresponds to a point at which the lowermost portion 131 of each scalloped ring is situated this assures that the distance 127 will be maintained between the dip 133 of base rng 126 and 128 other than the structure differences associated with the use of two posts as opposed to three posts the construction and performance of the alternate embodiment is identical to that of the preferred embodiment the valve stent of the present invention may be utilized to replace a defective aortic valve such as the aortic or mitral valves under norml circumstances the stent would be cloth covered with a tricuspid valve body 44 in the case of the preferred embodiment three apices of the tri segmented valve body define the three valve cusps as are present in the natural aortic valve since the aortic and pulmonary valves are similar in configuration as are the mitral and tricuspid valves and since the valve stent referred to herein as an aortic valve stent is equally suited to the pulmonary valve location it is to be understood.