Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

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Replying to myself as I can't edit:

There's multiple issues here that apparently others aren't seeing.

The key one: it's a build or buy decision for a non-key part.

SpaceX's USP (as far as I'm aware, not a rocket nerd) was reusable rockets. If they can successfully demonstrate that, then they've won. They don't want to run out of money before then but chasing down every inefficiency in the existing system seems more like OCD than good business sense.

Subsidiary issues:

Sending the guy who "had never built anything" to negotiate hardware orders.

Getting the guy who "had never built anything" to build a vital part when off the shelf alternatives were available.

Celebrating this as business genius not unnecessary risk.

IIRC this was a key part. Anything that “moves” and alters the state of a Rocket in flight could be considered key.

And this story, as far as I remember from the book, was from the Falcon 1 days, where reusability was not on the table. Early days type stuff where cash reserve preservation was tantamount.

The guy “had never built anything like the actuator” but he was an engineer who (hopefully by virtue of being an engineer) understood the first principles behind designs.

To put into context, a large part of SpaceX’s unique competitive advantage comes actions like this. The Aerospace industry up until SpaceX mostly operated in the manner you suggest: buy the outsourced parts, design only what is “truly key”, and then cobble it all together.

Except that exposes yourself to large amounts of supply chain risk, design constraints, and price gouging like no other. The actuator costed $120k because there were no competitors and they knew the old primes would buy it anyways.

Elon definitely went against the grain of established thinking at the time and it’s clearly paid off. Maybe not “business genius” but it’s not a small undertaking and went against decades of ingrained engineering culture and business practice.

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