The Leaning Factories 283
something with high accuracy because materials expands
and contracts as the temperature changes. To test if the
different parts of the rocket can survive a launch, there’s a
shaker room simulating a real rocket launch. In the factory,
you can also find the mission control room that looks like
a classroom with rows of desks after each other. In the
movies, the mission control room is usually sloped, but
at SpaceX the room is flat. The office space is open to
maximize the communication between employees. Each
employee has a quite large cubicle with low walls. Elon
himself has his office in this open office space. At other
companies, it’s more common that thick walls surround the
office of the CEO.^333
To decrease the price of the rockets, SpaceX manufac-
ture about 80 percent of the parts in the factory. The main
reason to why rockets are so expensive is the high cost
culture in the space industry. “There’s this tendency of big
aerospace companies to outsource everything,” Elon said.
“They outsource to subcontractors, and then the subcon-
tractors outsource to sub-subcontractors, and so on. You
have to go four or five layers down to find somebody
actually doing something useful – actually cutting metal,
shaping atoms. Basically, things take a long time and costs
a lot if you buy it from an airspace supplier. Things are
cheap and readily available if you buy it from an industrial
supplier. The whole airspace industry have gotten used to
that situation and we [SpaceX] need to get them not used
to that situation.”^305
SpaceX needed to purchase an engine valve. The sup-