Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Does this proprosal make sense ? (was RE: SPACE QUEST)
Message-ID: <1989Jul23.050231.1647@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <27897@watmath.waterloo.edu> <20220@louie.udel.EDU> <1989Jul22.232038.24123@utzoo.uucp> <20263@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 05:02:31 GMT

In article <20263@louie.udel.EDU> pezely@udel.EDU (Daniel Pezely) writes:
>...contractors will certainly produce and sell the parts with a lower
>price tag to a subsidiary than they would to NASA.  After all, NASA will
>pay what the contractors think they can get away with.

Very true.  I'm told that if you take a standard piece of off-the-shelf
equipment, and run it through NASA's cost models (which tell NASA how
much it ought to cost), and compare the result to the catalog price,
you begin to understand why NASA's projects are so costly.
-- 
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu