[ESS] unable to start sas process

[Richard M. Heiberger]

This looks like the problem described in the help file.  See
    ess/doc/html/ess.html
and search for "iESS(SAS)–Common problems"

Most likely you need:
ess-sas-sh-command (from the ESS etc directory) needs to be executable;
to check, type M-x dired; if not, fix it as follows, type M-:,
then at the minibuffer prompt `Eval:', type
    (set-file-modes "ess-sas-sh-command" 493).