Spinoffs from Flight Software

It is important to consider what software could be used for commercial businesses and what software functions show up in both flight and development.

For example, in some of the early discussions with Mike Bennett we were thinking the same software could be used for simulations as for control software in flight. (The Shuttle Mission Simulator does this. NASA does it by running real flight-qualified flight computers to drive the crew station.) Then, the same simulation software can be used in commercial applications such as driving lunar explorations ridefilms at a theme park. Our goal is to get as much of the spacecraft to pay for itself as we can.

We might even consider writing early commercial software to flight software standards, to reduce development costs downstream.