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"The SpaceX thing to defence" - SpaceX introduced reusable rockets and e.g. builds their own rocket engines... I feel that I can explain unique things that set

by Torkel 3y ago

"The SpaceX thing to defence" - SpaceX introduced reusable rockets and e.g. builds their own rocket engines... I feel that I can explain unique things that set SpaceX apart from legacy companies. And that those things are not just "they are a startup and the legacy companies are not". But for Anduril I fail to see what they actually do that is so revolutionary vs what was already out there. And most of the info out there, including here, is about the founder and not the company. But perhaps it's just that the cool demos are not public.

MilStdJunkie 3y ago
All true, agreed. IMO SpaceX also took the fifty-cubic-kilometer mound of paperwork surrounding orbital launch, surveyed it carefully with a steely gaze, then pulled out their unit and pissed all over it. OK, I say that with some levity. From what I've seen, it was far more subtle, and this is the aspect, the "secret sauce", that Anduril might be looking to replicate. What they really did - one of the things, the thing that's in my core interest - was go through the . . tens of thousands . . of specifications, and isolate the ones that actually mattered, versus the ones that were good but onerously labor intensive[1], versus the ones that weren't only not necessary but which were unfalsifiable[2]. One of SpaceX's great advantages is that they could just deep six such very-expensive-hourly-headcount piles of "work", before they got stuck up to their axles in an entirely speculative systems engineering approach or some other brilliant piece of paperwork. [1] Like looking for "commonality" when no such thing exists or is even possible. SpaceX doesn't waste time trying to show how "modular" their crap is according to some spec or other - when a variant goes far enough afield, they don't hesitate to cut the cord and roll a new product. False equivalence is a poison pill across all of aerospace, but in MIL-STD especially. [2] Like the DoD mapping of Mil-STD-881 to MIL-STD-498 to goddamn scrums - how the hell do you tell if that's useful or not? Or if it's an actual thing in the world? You can't. It's horseshit, a six million dollar Powerpoint slide.
- xyzzyz 3y ago
  What Anduril is trying to do is to first build product that they think the customers will need, on their own dime, and with no exact specs from DoD or anyone else, and then present the (more or less) finished product to the customer, and tell them to take it or leave it. This removes the need for negotiating R&D contracts, preparing detailed spec or working with someone else’s detailed spec etc, and does cut significant amount of process related red tape. The risk here is that the customer will, indeed, leave it instead of buying, which means that R&D costs are not recouped.

by Torkel 3y ago

MilStdJunkie 3y ago

All true, agreed. IMO SpaceX also took the fifty-cubic-kilometer mound of paperwork surrounding orbital launch, surveyed it carefully with a steely gaze, then pulled out their unit and pissed all over it. OK, I say that with some levity. From what I've seen, it was far more subtle, and this is the aspect, the "secret sauce", that Anduril might be looking to replicate. What they really did - one of the things, the thing that's in my core interest - was go through the . . tens of thousands . . of specifications, and isolate the ones that actually mattered, versus the ones that were good but onerously labor intensive[1], versus the ones that weren't only not necessary but which were unfalsifiable[2]. One of SpaceX's great advantages is that they could just deep six such very-expensive-hourly-headcount piles of "work", before they got stuck up to their axles in an entirely speculative systems engineering approach or some other brilliant piece of paperwork. [1] Like looking for "commonality" when no such thing exists or is even possible. SpaceX doesn't waste time trying to show how "modular" their crap is according to some spec or other - when a variant goes far enough afield, they don't hesitate to cut the cord and roll a new product. False equivalence is a poison pill across all of aerospace, but in MIL-STD especially. [2] Like the DoD mapping of Mil-STD-881 to MIL-STD-498 to goddamn scrums - how the hell do you tell if that's useful or not? Or if it's an actual thing in the world? You can't. It's horseshit, a six million dollar Powerpoint slide.

xyzzyz 3y ago
What Anduril is trying to do is to first build product that they think the customers will need, on their own dime, and with no exact specs from DoD or anyone else, and then present the (more or less) finished product to the customer, and tell them to take it or leave it. This removes the need for negotiating R&D contracts, preparing detailed spec or working with someone else’s detailed spec etc, and does cut significant amount of process related red tape. The risk here is that the customer will, indeed, leave it instead of buying, which means that R&D costs are not recouped.