When someone from Britain speaks, Americans hear a "British accent"...

[Terry Hancock]

On Saturday 08 October 2005 04:35 am, Steve Holden wrote:
> I must have been working at NASA at the time; they are well known for 
> embiggening prices.

Not nearly as much as the DoD, from what I hear.

Truthfully, I think those stories are bit exaggerated -- I think the
real problem is somebody making a bad make/buy decision. They decide
to make something that they could easily have bought at the hardware
store.

Naturally, any time you make a one-off part, it costs something awful.

That's the real reason that, say, Apollo was so expensive. Nearly
every part was a one-off prototype.  If you get used to that almost
always being the case, it shouldn't be so surprising that somebody
forgets to check to see if the odd part *can* be sourced commercially.

Of course, making one-off parts isn't nearly as hard today as it
was in 1965, so that's interesting too.

Sorry for the digression, but the real story behind things like
that is kind of interesting, IMHO. ;-)

And I think the original joke is pretty dead by now. ;-)

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com