>>Getting the hardware ready takes time, what about the software?<<

Work is already well underway to develop and field "canned" mission software for shuttle. Currently, it's written as an integrated mission package - both vehicle and payload in one package. The goal of the new approach is to develop the vehicle software as a stand-alone that requires very little mod from flight to flight, and do the payload software in modules that would run on laptops, not orbiter computers.

OSP will be a lot simpler than shuttle (if NASA sticks to basics; my fingers are crossed) and would incorporate this approach from the start. Having generic software will reduce drastically the need for a massive software effort to meet a tight deadline (like a rescue). Rendezvous software is refined enough that it can be run on the fly. Each inch of a rescue approach won't have to be choreographed in exquisite detail like it is now.

-Kim-