Shuttle costs

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