Re:The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.
by gaius on Monday November 01, 2010 @11:00AM
(#1856677)
But what could they have done differently? They could perhaps iterate the design of each satellite on the assembly line. But things like buying rockets, getting them delivered to the launch site, getting a launch window, etc, it's hard to see how you can do that in sprints. This is about moving physical stuff around.
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Re:The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.
by boundlessdreamz on Monday November 01, 2010 @11:23AM
(#1856755)
The point is "they should have done something differently" not "what they could have done". Halfway through their development process, the problem they started out to solve no longer existed.
Launching satellites etc are expensive and time consuming. Agreed. But even when Iridium launched it's satellites were not fully operational. They would have probably had enough warning to iterate on a different product
We don't know that they had a choice. If you've signed a contract, with penalties, for 15 launches, you might know you're doomed but have to press on anyway. The Eurofighter is another example of this - when the UK govt tried to cancel its Tranche 3 order, it found the penalties would have been more than the cost of the aircraft...