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#80
by
meekGee
on 14 Jun, 2019 00:07
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*snip*
The subcontractor train is an established fact in traditional aerospace, with the predictable outcome.
It's annoying when a "new space" company is established and immediately falls into the same pattern.
It depends on the part, but it's almost always going to be cheaper and faster to subcontract out to someone who specializes in whatever part you need, rather than purchasing all the tooling, raw materials, hiring people with the know-how, and slowly build up your internal knowledge base to produce the part on your own.
Everyone subcontracts. Even SpaceX, though they do a substantial amount of work in-house.
There's a difference between buying COTS parts from a vendor, to subcontracting a small job, to basically "subcontracting" everything and becoming just a contract manager.
That's how you get companies with almost no core competency except for the ability to get contracts. I know "everyone does it", but that's how the industry got to the state that's in.
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#81
by
yg1968
on 15 Jun, 2019 13:45
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SNC seems to be doing a good job out of subcontracting a lot of their work. Same thing for NGIS. Not because SpaceX prefers vertical integration means that it is the only way of doing things.
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#82
by
meekGee
on 16 Jun, 2019 13:27
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SNC seems to be doing a good job out of subcontracting a lot of their work. Same thing for NGIS. Not because SpaceX prefers vertical integration means that it is the only way of doing things.
Of course it's not the only way, since as I said, everyone's doing it the other way ...
Vertical integration is definitely the hardest way to do things, but without a doubt resulted in the most radical, rapid, and effective progress we've seen in aerospace in decades, and by a large margin.
This is not only circumstantial. It is easy to see how VI plays across the technology deck to enable this progress. W/o it, all of SpaceX's programs would have been many times slower and more expensive, if they were to happen at all.
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#83
by
Robotbeat
on 16 Jun, 2019 20:06
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You know “Aerospace inflation”? I.e. how things in Aerospace have, overall, increased in price a lot faster than everything else, even including increased capability?
The entire supply chain has had half a century of cost growth and stagnation and lack of spending discipline. That’s why vertically integration is necessary for a company like THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED.
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#84
by
gongora
on 16 Jun, 2019 22:19
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This isn't a SpaceX thread.
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#85
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 17 Jun, 2019 15:56
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twitter.com/bigelowspace/status/1140644245490954241?s=21
More on our "First Base": How do we help protect astronauts from radiation on the surface of the moon? Placing regolith over their heads has long been considered necessary but previous methods have not been practical. On the lunar surface, the simpler the construction the better.
https://twitter.com/bigelowspace/status/1140644376550367232Astronauts fill durable tubes with regolith. The tubes (~20 m long) are laced over the habitat to build a desired thickness. There is a simple approach to this placement. This approach to radiation protection doesn’t require moving parts. The astronauts perform the tube loading.
twitter.com/bigelowspace/status/1140644495156842496?s=21
Outside of the habitat, an enclosed rover outfitted with water or other tiles provides much needed shielding on the lunar surface. The two person enclosed rover and the solar field are deployed from the two warehouses of "First Base".
https://twitter.com/bigelowspace/status/1140644716301524997Close-ups from a table model at our plant that we quickly put together about 15 years ago. As you can see we have refined some of these concepts.
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#86
by
libra
on 17 Jun, 2019 16:00
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Or just land near the Marius Hills Hole (MHH) and gently lower a Sundancer inside. Dust, radiations, insane variation of temperatures: gone. Et voilà !
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#87
by
A_M_Swallow
on 17 Jun, 2019 16:54
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{snip}
Astronauts fill durable tubes with regolith. The tubes (~20 m long) are laced over the habitat to build a desired thickness. There is a simple approach to this placement. This approach to radiation protection doesn’t require moving parts. The astronauts perform the tube loading.
Filling the tubes will require many hours of manual work in spacesuits. This is not a good option.
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#88
by
Comga
on 17 Jun, 2019 23:27
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{snip}
Astronauts fill durable tubes with regolith. The tubes (~20 m long) are laced over the habitat to build a desired thickness. There is a simple approach to this placement. This approach to radiation protection doesn’t require moving parts. The astronauts perform the tube loading.
Filling the tubes will require many hours of manual work in spacesuits. This is not a good option.
Astronauts may be the most versatile, but they are undoubtedly the most expensive “moving parts” one could imagine.
This is not thought through, even though Bigelow hinted he had a solution years ago.
The caption says the model is something they built quickly 15 years ago.
That’s a blatant admission that they did not and never intended to put in a professional effort.
“He’s dead, Jim!”
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#89
by
DigitalMan
on 18 Jun, 2019 01:56
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{snip}
Astronauts fill durable tubes with regolith. The tubes (~20 m long) are laced over the habitat to build a desired thickness. There is a simple approach to this placement. This approach to radiation protection doesn’t require moving parts. The astronauts perform the tube loading.
Filling the tubes will require many hours of manual work in spacesuits. This is not a good option.
Astronauts may be the most versatile, but they are undoubtedly the most expensive “moving parts” one could imagine.
This is not thought through, even though Bigelow hinted he had a solution years ago.
The caption says the model is something they built quickly 15 years ago.
That’s a blatant admission that they did not and never intended to put in a professional effort.
“He’s dead, Jim!”
Eliminating moving parts is an odd goal in my opinion. Once the base is set up there are surely going to be attempts to mine lunar ice and other elements, no?
Eliminating something that is inevitable seems like a waste of time.
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#90
by
Robotbeat
on 18 Jun, 2019 02:15
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Space suits are cheaper than any large space-rated robotics. Astronauts themselves are self-replicating.
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#91
by
meekGee
on 18 Jun, 2019 03:30
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Space suits are cheaper than any large space-rated robotics. Astronauts themselves are self-replicating.
Not while in their spacesuits they aren't.
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#92
by
ZChris13
on 18 Jun, 2019 03:54
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Space suits are cheaper than any large space-rated robotics. Astronauts themselves are self-replicating.
Not while in their spacesuits they aren't.
It's not at useful timescales for current missions, although hopefully we'll see that change before the end of my life.
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#93
by
Robotbeat
on 18 Jun, 2019 03:58
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#94
by
meekGee
on 18 Jun, 2019 04:00
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#95
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 19 Jul, 2019 19:08
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#96
by
GWH
on 19 Jul, 2019 20:07
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#97
by
whitelancer64
on 19 Jul, 2019 20:30
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Hmm, S2 appears to have shrunk and BA330 fits easily into the fairing ...
https://twitter.com/bigelowspace/status/1152289674670383104
How a #B330 could be turned into a lunar base (First Base).
The more I look at that gif, the worse the rocket gets. Side boosters separating at the same time as S2, an enormous interstage for some reason, wrong shape of the fairing...
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#98
by
ddspaceman
on 12 Aug, 2019 13:15
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#99
by
high road
on 12 Aug, 2019 13:25
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Not sure whether this is a sign that inflatable modules perform better than expected or inflatable modules' progress stagnating...