How a few screws cost $2000 and a 240GB multinodes cluster cost $50

There are countless flaws in this comparison, but the one that stands out to me is the simple buying vs renting issue. They sourced screws that would be permanently installed into something. They rented a couple hours on a server.<p>Renting is always cheaper than owning. That's a pretty universal rule. Complain about the red tape all you want, I have also felt the burn of the "approved supplier" list. That doesn't excuse an extremely faulty comparison, however. It just clouds the issue.<p>I understand coming up with a better comparison would be a little more work than the immediate but completely faulty on-hand cost of the server instance they spun up, but I know the cost of the computer I own and the cost of a server I rent and I wouldn't use them to make a comparison just because I'm too bothered to come up with a real comparison.<p>There is also the issue of the fact that the $2000 number was pulled out of seemingly thin air, the possibility that they use approved suppliers to avoid the issue of counterfeit or sub-standard parts, which have killed people when installed into regular things like bleachers that stay on the Earth. It's the freaking Canadarm, god forbid we splurge now so we don't waste millions later fixing it or kill someone. When the end result of the materialized idea is it's going to be launched into space, the costs probably aren't so black and white.<p>Interesting story, but with so many variables unaccounted for I have a hard time gleaning any sort of lesson from it. Other than the fact that building a piece of equipment that will be launched into space involves a fair bit of red tape, which I was already aware of and am honestly kind of thankful for.

The comment backlash against this anecdote is a little odd to me. No, it's not a perfect analogy. No, the cost comparison is neither fair nor complete nor comprehensive.<p>But it <i>is</i> an interesting connection to make, and there <i>are</i> interesting ideas that the comparison generates, so let's treat it like a parable rather than a critical business analysis.<p>If anything, one of the most striking comparisons is how work was done in a government-funded research lab versus how it is done in a startup. Own vs rent, meticulous simulation vs rapidly-iterated prototyping, waterfall vs agile, regulation vs free for all.<p>The superficial details of the story aren't actually that important, but there's a lot of meat to dig into.

The first example includes cost of labour. The second example doesn't.<p>Two people playing with that cluster for a couple of hours cost more than $45.<p>Still, the author is right that when building physical products sometimes things are a lot more expensive than you think they're going to be because you're following some strict protocol.

Ordering from an approved supplier with a traceable chain of delivery for equipment used in a space program seems quite reasonable to me. There is a reason that people from the more traditional engineering disciplines (aerospace, chemical, civil, mechanical) are so anal-retentive about "proper engineering guidelines." It's because they deal with things that blow up, and when they do blow up shoot turbine blade shrapnel all over the place. Nearly everyone working in these fields has some story about how a little screw up in one out-of-the-way component caused some epic disaster that involved fire.<p>Yeah, sure in this case it was just some screws on a plastic housing and there was a 99.999% chance that everything would've been fine. But you don't want to make exceptions, because if you play fast and loose here and there, eventually all the prudent practices go out the window and you're no better than the software guys.

This happens all the time in government. Business has the lucky position of constantly scrambling to cut costs, cut redundancy, cut inefficiency. Otherwise they'll be beaten by a new company that isn't tied down by self-induced paralysis. The government has no such incentive to do so. When faced with a choice between saving fifty billion dollars and having the <i>assurance</i> that everything is hunky-dory, the government will spend the fifty billion dollars without a second thought.<p>One of my duties, along with being a radio technician, is ordering replacement parts for the systems that we work on. Some of the stuff is expensive and reasonably so - for example, a circuit board with $200 bucks in components is $20,000 because it has to be professionally made and is basically a one-of-a-kind part. The supplier has to charge that just to recoup the costs of retooling. We accept this because we need very reliable parts on radar systems and are willing to pay for the assurance that these parts will be good.<p>On the other hand, I just ordered an audio cable through the FAA. Simple two-wire audio cable... $333.45. I could've bought the exact same thing from Radioshack for five bucks. Or Monoprice for one dollar.<p>At one point, Raytheon told us that we were not allowed to do any intermediate-level maintenance (anything involving fixing circuit cards) on their stuff. We were expected to send the bad cards to them, and they would give us replacements and bill us for $10,000 each. The chief warrant officer laughed, said "Fuuuck no," and told us that if we could easily fix it, do so.<p>Raytheon realized we weren't sending them any circuit cards and called the commanding general to get him relieved. He didn't get fired, but we started sending the cards to them for broken 2-cent resistors. For ten grand each. Same thing with $30,000 power supplies, etc.<p>Right now, the government has declared that getting office supplies from Staples is horrible. We're supposed to get them from Servmart, which sells them for five times the price... or more. Cheap-shit ballpoint pens for a dollar each when I can get Bics for $4.60 for 72 of them.<p>Your tax dollars at work, gents.

Screws for spacecraft vs borrowing a machine to play with, ok. $2000 vs $45.<p>Someone explain why a frying pan and a Raspberry Pi cost the same.

This is why as an intern at NASA I decided government work wasn't for me and I eventually ended in startup world. However, I think there is something to be said for creating within strict guidelines and procedures, it can sometimes lead to amazing engineering achievements.

This also shows in how quick you can iterate. The "REPL time" in mechanical engineering has decreased a lot with CAD software but it's still insanely long compared to software development.<p>I used to work in a lab with a researcher who designed complex mechanical systems with lots of rotating parts made from rare and expensive materials. Everytime he needed even the slightest modification he had to wait for at least three months to have a new part machined.

How a comment cost $10,000 and a car cost $5: I got you all to read this, wasting your time and electricity, computer costs, etc. In contrast, I got a cab yesterday and it only cost $5.<p>I don't generally insist that everything posted be transcendent, but I fail to see even a fair point being made in the post. If the point is "buying things for an aerospace corporation is more expensive than renting an hour on EC2", okay, but we sort of knew that already.

I work in hardware, and wanted to give my perspective on this.<p>Designing and building hardware is expensive, really expensive. If you don't take the time to follow proper procedures you are not only wasting your time, but often hundreds to thousands of dollars of parts you are never going to use. Going ahead without thinking can easily put you 2 or more weeks behind just because that is how long it takes your supplier to make what you ordered. You don't just quickly spin up an instance of a test, you have to buy or rent equipment that is often in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars range.<p>I can see exactly why you wouldn't want to just go to Home Depot when working on equipment like what MDA makes. Say you go to Home depot and buy your fasteners, now the company has to pay for your time and reimburse the cost, which is almost certainly going to be as much or more to process than the courier charge ($30-$40) to ship the parts from the company you are making monthly payments to regardless. Then there is the additional risk of bringing in parts that could get mixed up with real production parts. There is a huge risk if you somehow get that Home Depot fastener mixed up with the special aerospace fastener you are using, the extra cost is worth it as insurance that "bad" fasteners aren't getting into the product. I can say from experience, it is ridiculously easy to get parts mixed up even when you are careful.

Those rules are important. Not every company in the world is a start up with &#60;100 people. Once you have thousands of employees, you need controls. You can't have interns selecting suppliers or putting stuff into the bill of materials, are you serious with this?

Unfortunately we're just as much to blame for the red tape. It didn't get created out of a vacuum, it was created to protect people. I wrote a whole blog post called Why Does a Hammer Costs $5000 at <a href="http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/" rel="nofollow">http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost...</a>

why, in Russia, on government sponsored Olympic village construction projects $2k for a few screws is strikingly cheap.)