Space, Valley-Style

Thursday, 17 November 2011

Great long article from Andrew Chaikin on Elon Musk and SpaceX. I love the business & engineering posture, sticking it big time to an ageing industry driven by pre-conceived ideas:

Mueller recalls asking a vendor for an estimate on a particular engine valve. “They came back [requesting] like a year and a half in development and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just way out of whack. And we’re like, ‘No, we need it by this summer, for much, much less money.’ They go, ‘Good luck with that,’ and kind of smirked and left.” Mueller’s people made the valve themselves, and by summer they had qualified it for use with cryogenic propellants.