Author Topic: Inflated hopes for Bigelow  (Read 45916 times)

Offline Comga

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Re: Inflated hopes for Bigelow
« Reply #120 on: 10/18/2006 02:40 am »
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publiusr - 17/10/2006  2:49 PM

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Tony Rusi - 27/7/2006  3:45 PM
The "optical" windows on the ISS were Fused Silica, so are the Russian windows that I am talking about. So I don't think they are that far apart in terms of optical quality.  The reason Russian stuff is cheaper is because their engineers make ten bucks an hour instead of 60.

I never would have guessed.

I heard from a reliable source that the Discovery window was stripped and recoated because the astronauts didn't like the original color.  Perhaps it was called out that way in the spec, but they didn't like it when they went on a source inspection visit, and demanded that it be reworked.  This is not cheap, but also not a major part of the cost, which was millions IIRC.  It may also be that the Discovery window IS of higher quality, and larger.   And cost goes up steeply with quality and size.
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline Jim

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Re: Inflated hopes for Bigelow
« Reply #121 on: 10/18/2006 10:39 am »
Destiny? vs Discovery

Online Eric Hedman

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Re: Inflated hopes for Bigelow
« Reply #122 on: 01/18/2013 07:36 pm »
Picture gallery from announcement on Pravda:

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/album/7094/

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