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Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by Animats on Friday November 20, 2020 @12:38PM (#25162788)
This is also true of aircraft carriers. The head of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock once told Congress that if they'd order two at once, instead of one at a time, he'd throw in a third carrier for free.
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by rootusrootus on Friday November 20, 2020 @02:23PM (#25163889)
The Navy has ordered two at a time, and they definitely didn't get a third one free. They did save about 15%, though.

https://news.usni.org/2019/01/31/navy-awards-2-carrier-contr...

Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by Animats on Friday November 20, 2020 @04:23PM (#25165148)
That comment wasn't about this round, it was from the middle days of the Nimitz class, which was produced one at a time for almost 35 years, with occasional periods of no production.
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by AniseAbyss on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:20PM (#25163223)
Ha easy thing to say. And when he can't deliver on the promise and goes under who has to sweep in to save all those jobs?
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by pram on Friday November 20, 2020 @12:50PM (#25162918)
Well, did they take him up on the offer? lol
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by willvarfar on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:01PM (#25163029)
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by rkagerer on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:38PM (#25163419)
I don't see any "throw a third carrier in for free" mentioned in that article.

The link says the savings from Newport would be $1.6B.

It also quotes the Navy acquisitions chief pointing out "about a third of the cost of a carrier comes from government-furnished equipment that the Navy would contract for separately" and that he previously said the overall savings of ordering two at once would be around $2.5B after considering similar efficiencies of "scale" from those vendors.

Considering the cost[1] of these Ford-class carriers is around $13B this represents a savings of about 10% overall, at least according to my crude, back-of-the-napkin math [ 2.5B/(2x13B) or 1.6B/(2/3x2x13B) ].

So it might be closer to "buy 10, get one free".

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraf...

Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by jessaustin on Friday November 20, 2020 @06:20PM (#25166333)
Please don't give them any ideas...
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by Animats on Friday November 20, 2020 @12:58PM (#25162999)
No.
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by dylan604 on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:07PM (#25163098)
Congress, collectively, is not often referred to as "smart". If I'm a senator and a guy sitting in front of me makes that offer, I take him up on it and hold his feet to the fire. How do you explain that to your constituents? I was offered free, and I said no. Re-elect Me!!!

To be fair, the building of the actual carrier is just part of the price of a carrier. What's the cost to also fit that carrier out with all of the various aircraft required to make the carrier worth having? Didn't we see an example of this when the NSA donated Hubble equivalent satellites to NASA, but NASA had to politely say no since they had no budget to operate them?

Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by akiselev on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:36PM (#25163401)
> Didn't we see an example of this when the NSA donated Hubble equivalent satellites to NASA, but NASA had to politely say no since they had no budget to operate them?

It was the NRO not the NSA and NASA did accept the donation. They announced the mission schedule for one of the satellites in 2016 [1]

[1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/18/nasa-moves-forward-wit...

Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by smorephism on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:15PM (#25163175)
>What's the cost to also fit that carrier out with all of the various aircraft required to make the carrier worth having?

Right idea! The answer is "hardly anything, relative to crewing it for its useful lifetime", but you're barking up the correct tree.

Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by kevinpet on Friday November 20, 2020 @03:50PM (#25164788)
DOD budget is about $350K per employee. A typical E5 (sergeant or PO2 in the navy) makes $3K/mo, or 1/10 of that.
Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o... by jbay808 on Friday November 20, 2020 @01:23PM (#25163258)
You could always sell the bare-bones carrier to an ally, the way Russia sold their extra carrier to China.