- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 2,007
- Points
- 63
Well... let's see... referring to the inflated prices the Gov paid for toilet seats
an other things... I have 10pc PHR803T LDs still in sleds...
I can let NASA have them at the incredibly low Price of $189,000.00 USD
and I will personally deliver them on my Harley...
Just send me the Purchase Order and it's a done deal...
Jerry
You know the "toilet seat" story is a red herring, right?
"The United States military services are often in the position of making equipment last decades longer than originally designed. For example the B-52 bomber is more than 50 years old and expected to be useful for another 20 years. The famous toilet seat came about when about twenty Navy planes had to be rebuilt to extend their service life. The onboard toilets required a uniquely shaped fiberglass piece that had to satisfy specifications for the vibration resistance, weight, and durability. The molds had to be specially made as it had been decades since the planes original production. The price of the "seats" reflected the design work and the cost of the equipment to manufacture them.
The problem arose because the top level drawing for the toilet assembly referred to the part being purchased as a "Toilet Seat" instead of its proper nomenclature of "Shroud". The Navy had made a conscious decision at the time, not to pay the OEM of the aircraft the thousands of dollars it would take to update their top level drawing in order to fix this mistake in nomenclature.
Later some unknown Senate staffer combing lists of military purchases for the Golden Fleece Awards found "Toilet Seat - $600" and trumpeted it to the news media as an example of "government waste." The Senate then wrote into the appropriations bill that this item would not be purchased for anything more than $140.00. The shroud has never been purchased since, as no one can make the shroud at that price.
President Reagan had actually held a televised news conference, where he held up one of these shrouds. During the press conference, he explained the true story. The media of the time, and still today, incorrectly reports that the Pentagon was paying $640.00 for a $12.00 toilet seat."
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As to the OP, very cool. There are some amazingly cheap, yet very high quality diodes, aren't they? The lab I work in makes violet laser diodes, and yet we still buy and use these PHRs for several different applications. None of our applications are as lofty (haha, I cracks myself up) as yours, but still, we've used dozens of them.
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