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From: wb6rqn@yojna1.UUCP (Brian Lloyd)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Private Space
Message-ID: <125@yojna1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Nov-85 10:40:34 EST
Article-I.D.: yojna1.125
Posted: Mon Nov 11 10:40:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 08:23:48 EST
References: <8510291721.AA00286@s1-b.ARPA>, <333@ssc-vax.UUCP> <6125@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Yojna1 Amateur Radio Packet Unix System; Germantown, Md.
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> > ...  After proving the new 
> > technologies, we estimate it would cost Boeing $2.7 Billion to build
> > a vehicle like the Phoenix, and that the first one off the assembly line
> > would cost about $300 million (3 times a 747). [...]
> > 
> No offence to you personally or to Boeing, Dani, but the military and
> space branches of major aerospace companies are incapable of building
> anything cheaply.  Even when it can be, and should be, built cheaply.
> They simply don't know how any more. [...]
> 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

The aerospace industry as a whole suffers because there are no simple 
technologies for the construction of air- and spacecraft.  Our current
technologies are very labor intensive.  Combine that with the product liability
problems faced by the aerospace companies (currently 30-40% of the cost of a
new aircraft is product liability insurance) and it is not likely that any
aerospace company can produce an inexpensive anything.

If you are interested in an inexpensive air/spacecraft you must:

  1.  come up with a way to reduce the product liability costs, and ...

  2.  come up with a structure that has a strength-to-weight ratio that is
      as good as the riveted sheet metal, monocoque construction used today,
      that also is not labor intensive (expensive) to build.

Another reason that military and NASA craft are so expensive is that they
are built to military and government specifications (a mouse built to 
government specs is an elephant), so you are correct in stating that the
military and space branches of the major aerospace manufacturers tend to
build expensive products, but it is by decree rather than by choice.  They
build what the customer wants, and to the customer's specifications.

What we are really talking about here is commercial production where things
tend to be a little looser, albeit plagued by the product liability problem.
Most of the technology is now in place and I think that Dani's numbers sound
quite reasonable.

By the way, Henry, what is your experience in the aerospace industry?

Brian Lloyd
...![bellcore!cp1]!yojna1!wb6rqn