A Space Junkyard

Today's Los Angeles Times has an article about a North Hollywood junkyard that stocks a huge quantity of used aerospace parts, from valves to rocket engines. Norton Sales Inc. got started in the early 1960s. The junkyard had fallen on hard times, with the collapse of the Los Angeles-area aerospace economy in the 1980s, but it's making something of a comeback now with NASA's new plans for moon and Mars missions. The customers used to be rich Hollywood types; nowadays they are as likely to be private space entrepreneurs. "It's dangerous coming to a place like this," said Dave Masten of Masten Space. "It's like shopping on an empty stomach."

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Space junkyard, eh?

[cy_a253]

Watto: How are you going to pay for all this?
Qui-Gon Jinn: I have twenty thousand Republic dataries.
Watto: Republic credits? Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real.
Qui-Gon Jinn: I don't have anything else
[waves hand]
Qui-Gon Jinn: but credits will do fine.
Watto: No, they won't-a.
[Qui-Gon waves his hand more firmly]
Qui-Gon Jinn: Credits will do fine.
Watto: No, they won't-a. What? You think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around like that? I'm a Toydarian, mind tricks don't work on me. Only money. No money, no parts, no deal!

Re:Space junkyard, eh?

[LarsG]

That is also such a marvelous example of the high moral standard of the Jedi.

LA has amazing surplus

[NixieBunny]

My current favorite surplus place in LA is Apex Electronics, which is the electronics version of Norton's. Same idea - so much stuff you can't wrap your head around it, and aisles that collapsed in the '94 earthquake and haven't yet been restored to a vertical condition.

This place looks quite fun to visit. I'll have to check it out the next time I'm in the area.

Re:LA has amazing surplus

[Otter]

Also, an hour out of town there's the junkyard associated with the Planes of Fame aircraft museum. You walk around half-dismantled F-4's and F-14's and check out parts.

The most LA part of the article, though, is "Some of its best customers have also been car customizers looking for cheap, spaceflight-grade hydraulic valves." LOW-RI-DER!

Yeah right.

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy buys the crap for a penny on the dollar and then asks for insane prices. The rocket engines are only worth scrap or as a museum piece as they have not been stored correctly to ensure they have not deteriorated or corroded.

fallen on hard times means he has to start charging sane prices instead of his government prices.

The apollo 1 command module engine he is trying to scam $1.5 mill out of is only worth 15 grand in scrap metal and is actually only worth that as it is not safe to use in it's current condition let alone relied upon for the safety of a crew or 22 million dollar sattelite.

Junkyard owners always think their turds are gold plated rare. in fact there is a good reason why he was able to buy that crap for the few dollars here and there. It's not worth anything.

Re:Yeah right.

[Mercedes308]

I go to junkyards a fair bit to get bits and pieces and what you said is so bloody true. No matter how much they gloss that turd it is, at the end of the day, just a shiny piece of shit. Also when talking down a part I often say "It's not a bloody space shuttle part, it's just a [insert name here]" That could actually catch me out at Norton Sales and end up looking the complete Muppet.

Re:Yeah right.

[The Breeze]

All junkyards are like this. They charge prices higher than what they buy it for because it costs money to store that stuff, costs money to dismantle it, costs money to keep the lights on, costs money to insure it. They have a facility where stuff is stored for years gathering dust, bringing in no revenue. They most likely sell 1% of what they have. That 1% has to cover the cost of staying in business and putting food on the table.

And, an Apollo engine is not worth $15 grand in scrap metal. It is worth whatever you would save on R & D if you were working on a similar project and needed to reverse engineer the thing. Even on a smaller scale, if you have an old rocket engine, and you're building another one, and spending $10000 on an old piece of junk to study leads you to ask, "hey, why is that like that, I should research it some more" and you discover something that prevents your shiny new engine from blowing itself up you're ahead of the game.

Without junkyards and their "outrageous" markups, new parts would be much, much more.

Re:Danger

[ScrewMaster]

On the other hand, a lot of those parts were probably built to specs that no commercial entity could afford. You might be better off with used mil-spec and NASA parts.

film industry

[edwardpickman]

Norton has always been popular with the film industry. I think back in it's heyday a good share of the profits came from selling to film companies. Unfortunately they got a double hit because as the Aerospace industry cranked down the film industry got nailed with runaway production so most of that went out of country. C&H was another good surplus company. There used to be half a dozen good ones in the LA area but I know several have gone under. I haven't lived in LA for five years so I don't know who is still in business. People underestimate the film industry. I know of several dental houses and medical supply places that sold more product to the film industry than their regular doctors and dentists. I remember one company stopped selling to us becuase we were cleaning them out all the time and they weren't able to supply the hospitals.

Re:film industry

[Hans Lehmann]

Not to mention that 3D rendering cycle prices went wayyy down. Much cheaper than building lifesize realistic looking stuff in lots of cases.

From the film industry's standpoint, Norton Sales provides props and set decoration, not entire backdrops. Renting a three foot tall rocket engine for a few hundred dollars to place behind the actors will be cheaper than setting up a green-screen shot for quite some time. Heck, it's probably cheaper to rent the real thing than it is to build a realistic facsimile out of Styrofoam and vacuum-form plastic. If Norton Sales goes under any time soon, it won't be because of cheap CPU cycles.

JATO

[Greg Lindahl]

I wonder if they have any JATO rockets?

article punchline

[Alien54]

You got to love this bit

Although Guzman said his business is doing well with the new commercial space boom, there are still challenges, especially since 9/11.Tougher export rules prevent him from selling much of his stock overseas. It's no longer easy to obtain old rocket parts, either. "This stuff is tough to get nowadays," he said.

Even before the attacks on the twin towers in New York, Guzman said he had to be wary. He recalled getting a visit from the FBI after one of Norton's customers put a Peacekeeper missile motor up for sale on EBay.

Where, the agents asked, did you get that particular piece of equipment?

"We bought it from the government," came the reply.

The ACME corporation can help you out...

[BertieBaggio]

I suggest you consult a Mr Wile E. Coyote, who has experience in these matters.