Apparently Agfa films will be produced again

sanderx1 said:

Umm...
1) they did it for approximately the money NASA spends on documentation for manned launches - they also did it in a short timeframe and arguably using an alternative approach to what NASA is likely to have used. They also are fairly close to having the result be commercially exploited via Virgin Galactic, something NASA has often struggled with.
2) strictly speaking, NASA doesn't fund anything, Congress funds NASA to perform aerospace R&D, often being very specific about how the money is to be spent ... but even so, most of the science used in this cases came not from NASA, but ballistic and sounding missile research and need not have come from USA at all.
3) I agree - not really ;-)

Starchaser in UK or even Armadillo aerospace are much closer to a true startup model ... and notably neither has really flown yet.

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Well, given that half of Scaled Composites has already gone AWOL to go work on the Tesla Roadster project - I suspect that Virgin Galactic may be on hold...

Maybe they'll be back, maybe not. The first couple hundred zillionaires who want to partake in sub-orbital space travel will likely fork over 8 figures for the privilege. After that, it will lose its cachet and that will be the end of that.

Photo Engineer said:

You need a staff of engineers and technicians. About 3 to run the machine and two professionals to back them up. You need about 10 to do the storing moving slitting chopping and packaging. You need the machines to go with all of this.

And, this does not include the R&D to start it up. It assumes you have all the knowhow in the people above, and own the proper formulas.

PE

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So essentially, this is only realistic if you can outsource / subcontract the product coating ... or at the very least the product packaging (including cutting) to somebody with existing facilities for such work on photo-sensitive, even if not photograhic, materials. Oh, and for some odd reason I didn't see people for QA/QC in your roster ... and without them you will only get a product people will hate. So if you have 13 people to manufacture it you probably need another 13 to make the formulas you have work, make sure they work in both test kettles and the large one (and its not as if *that* is an off the shelf item), that the result is consistent and that it is resonably uniform.

The alternative to just have 13 people to do the emulsioning and coating R&D while leaving the actual coating and packaging to somebody else seems much more viable approach.

Hey, I left a lot out of that. It would take me pages to detail what has to go on in a real facility. That is bare bones.

How about IR inspection equipment, mapping hardware and software to drive slitting and chopping to maximize yield and avoid defects. I could go on and on. Yes, you need test kettles and production kettles depending on size and you then need 2 coating machines, one for tests and one for production.

BTW, for all of you, it is "Emulsion Making", not "emulsioning" which is the literal German translation. Just as they use something like "basting sauce" in German we use "overcoat" in English. There are unique words in both languages that translate rather oddly if we don't know the ins and outs of the langages and the science.

In Japanese, you 'lay the emulsion' but in English you 'coat the emulsion'.

But, there is a lot more to this. After all, it is a complex process to bring a photo product to market. (dont forget marketing).

PE

Photo Engineer said:

How about IR inspection equipment, mapping hardware and software to drive slitting and chopping to maximize yield and avoid defects. I could go on and on. Yes, you need test kettles and production kettles depending on size and you then need 2 coating machines, one for tests and one for production.
PE

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Surely you can have somebody else do the production coating and chopping?

You can split it up into as many companies as you want, just as long as each unit keeps in-sync. Lets hope there is no Frankenstein monster created through error if they do that though.

PE