Shuttle costs

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Al Globus wrote:

> The truth is much more prosaic. Spaceflight is difficult, orders of
> magnitude more difficult than aircraft because, among other things,
the
> velocities are more than an order of magnitude greater and energy
scales
> with the *square* of the velocity. High energies make huge demands
on
> systems and materials requiring extensive engineering, test, and
> refurbishment. This requires lots of people, and people in the US
are
> expensive.

The largest single cost of any of NASA's launches has nothing to do
with fuel or materials (although I agree with you Al, better
materials will drive launch costs down); fully half of the cost of a
launch is...software.

Better, more reliable, _re-useable_ software is the key to reducing
space launch costs to acceptable levels.

:) ed