Shuttle costs

Ryan Healey wrote:
>
> --- Ed Minchau wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> Is this a joke? don't they already re-use their software?

This is incorrect. It probably comes from a speech by Goldin where he
*projected* that up to half the cost of future space systems would be
software. That said, software costs are a large and rising fraction of
launch system costs and failures caused by software are surprisingly
common (the second Sea Launch and one of the Ariane V failures were
caused by software). Needless to say, Microsoft class reliability is
not acceptable for launch vehicles ...

--
Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident. Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.