On 2 Mar 2005 09:03:38 -0800, in a place far, far away,
" made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I know this has been hashed over before, but I've got the task to
determine what exactly would be required to man rate the two EELV's to
NASA standards. Without getting into the philosophical debates over the
worthiness of such a project, does anyone know of sources of
information for *what* would need to happen and how much it might cost?

I don't have a link (though Jorge probably does), but there's a
document at JSC that purports to define what that means. The main
thing is adequate FOSD (failure on-set detection) to provide warning
in time to allow a flight abort system to be employed. It's still an
open question, I believe, whether or not boosters have to be capable
of being shut down (to prevent unlikely event of the launcher from
"catching up" to you after pulling the handle), but if so, then that
makes the Atlas problematic with its solids.

As for cost, nobody knows. Make your best guess, then multiply it by
two or three orders of magnitude.