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Comment by fhars | Hacker News Reader

It was a horrible failure. It was projected for 75 launches a year at about 25M$ (thats million dollars, not a software company in Seattle) per lauch from 1977 until the late eighties when it was scheduled to be replaced by something better. Instead it was 135 launches in 30 years at 1.6G$ per lauch, and it totally crippled NASA's capabilities to develop a replacement.

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you may want to change G to B. In the United States, where dollars are used, G is more likely to mean "Grand", or 1k. B would be billion. Or, when all else fails, just type it out.

He probably meant "giga".

Things like kUSD or M$ appear to have come from science - it's putting an SI prefix to a unit. Personally, when I write M$, I mean one megadollar, not 1 milion dollars.

That's fantastic; however, that's not how the general public writes it

You don't write M$ or G$ to general public at all.

Agreed. Though we do sometimes write $5M, which is functionally equivalent. I've noticed in internet communication, it's common to say a numeral before the dollar sign. For example, "You're going to end up spending 100$ on that".

In this case it is, but it isn't in others (like kUSD or G$).

Oh, I always thought that you write a numeral before the dollar sign... Thanks for pointing that out. It differs between currencies - for example, british pounds are written before numeral (£42), but polish złoty are written after (42zł).

Exept that billion is ambiguous, it might either be 10^9 (Giga) or 10^{12} (Tera).

Not in the United States where the USD originates. And like I said, when all else fails, write it all out.

Billion in USD in the United States is 10^9.

Gigadollars is a made-up SI-ified term in the US

G is short for grand, like "that car costs 100G's" for a $100,000 car, making it further unacceptable.

Long story short, to be most easily understood, it's a good idea to use the vernacular of the area

[edit: changed asterisk-asterisk to ^. Apparently two adjacent *'s aren't recognized]

(thats gillion dollars, not g-forces)

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