Though there is a lot of bureaucracy, you'd be surprised at how much work it is.

Consider how much a massive 'clean room' costs to operate.

Consider how much gear it takes to simulate the operation of massive robot arm in a 0G environment, when we live in a 1G environment.

Consider what happens when a 1 ton arm, attached to a 20 ton structure, applies toque to a 1/2 ton satellite... when the satellite is moving ...

Consider how much it costs to send 4 Engineers, a PM and a Bus Dev to Japan for three weeks for talks with Japanese Space Agency? Several times?

Consider the lawyers bill - Japanese, Canadian and American ones. Translators. Insurance estimates. Liabilities.

FYI - did you know that every single thing that goes into space is tracked? Every single screw had an ID number. It's original manufacturer, shipping, the date it was put on the station, by whom, when it was removed - etc etc. Every goddam screw :).

Now think of how much software and admin is needed to track all that.

And now consider that if one single manager, at one single subcontractor opens an 'issue report' anywhere in the world - that the 'countdown' for a shuttle launch was postponed? (Happened to my boss, opened a tiny change request on Admin Software in Toronto - went for lunch - Shuttle countdown froze, panic and hilarity ensue). And the overhead costs associated with that.

Space is expensive, especially 'manned space'.

Vert complex, one-of-a-kind system - where nothing is allowed to go wrong.

And we've managed to end up with shuttle with all of that bureaucracy.

I understand the complexity of the issue at hand. I can.

Nevertheless simple handles going for 200K a piece is a vast budget. Any proper business would quickly open up an internal department to "do the handles" since it both allows them to grow for free (you get additional specialists and the handles) and allows to use the same engineers for something else. More importantly testing becomes less of an issue since now you may easily do integrated testing of several disjoined components at once.

So no - I understand where the expenses come from. But it doesn't mean that structure is in _any_ way motivated.

The idea of subcontracting and every little piece of hardware being done by a separate little entity doesn't seem to work both in terms of pricing and in terms of the amount of work it would be doing be it a merged entity.

Case in point, SpaceX has demonstrated that applying standard business optimization tactics to space hardware manufacturing works.

Mostly. Note that EELV and NASA launches by SpaceX have an extra paperwork charge, which is as big as $20mm. One hopes that eventually the US government will be able to take advantage of the same, cheaper service that commercial launches buy.

"easily do integrated testing of several disjoined components at once."

It just doesn't work that way.

It's an area of hyper-specialization.

Everything made for space is a 'one off', there really are no economies of focus or scale. Maybe in launch.

There just aren't 'lines of business' in space really.

Once you walk in the situation and spend a few days there, and see what's going on, you get it.

I haven't even scratched the surface of it.

Every process is recorded, needs to be archived.

Every single piece of software hardware ever used needs to be 'kept around' in case something goes wrong. 20 year old computers, floppy disks, have to be managed and 'kept up' in case something from way back needs to be tested.

Purchasing requirements/limitations. Political control (governments pay for this, so they set rules, change them). Security clearances. Accounting standards. Process audits. Insurance audits. Hyper-specialization HR impossibilities (like 10 guys in the world qualified to do ABC activity).

You must wonder why it costs '100M dollars' to film a big movie, have a look at the detailed budgets. A lot comes out of the woodwork.

I think I'm really starting to understand more about all the reasons why SpaceX can get stuff in space for a fraction of the cost of Nasa in less than a decade in business

NASA doesn’t build rockets. You mean Lockheed/Boeing/ATK.

Basically yes. The NASA space shuttle was conceived by NASA, chosen by Nixon among a group of possible projects, and then the tank built by Lockheed, orbiter by ATK, etc. If anything, many of the above problems wouldn't just go away, some of them would become even more costly.