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

[Grant Edwards]

On 2005-10-10, Terry Hancock <hancock at anansispaceworks.com> 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.

That and the combination of low volumes and the cost of
testing. They want something seemingly simple (say a hammer),
but they want it tested and certified to a particular set of
functional and environmental specs.  That takes literally
man-years of effort, and then they only end up buying 3 of
them.  The cost of the testing gets divided by three and added
onto the unit cost.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Jesus is my
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