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Comment by hurricanetc | Hacker News Reader

Boeing doesn’t know how to deliver on time and on budget any more. They have spent too long being able to do whatever they want that when faced with a nimble competitor they absolutely flopped.

And they finally found a circumstance that they couldn’t lie and bribe their way out of.

And remember everyone... NASA gave Boeing $2 billion more than they gave SpaceX.

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Forget about delivery on time or on budget. They aren't even delivering a functional product.

This seems much deeper than just not being nimble.

They're a government contractor: they're not supposed to deliver a functional product right away. They're supposed to deliver a totally flawed product that's way behind schedule and that doesn't work, and then they're supposed to get more money from the government to fix it until it finally does work. That's how government contacts work.

>This seems much deeper than just not being nimble.

Yep, it goes much deeper than just Boeing.

I think the glib cynicism underplays just how bad of a cf this was. This isn't just the normal 'good enough for government work' sort of shenanigans that defense contractors engage in.

No, but it's the inevitable result of these shenanigans.

You dont need to be nimble when you are a defense contractor, you just need to exist. There have been many times the government has paid defense company to stay afloat because its in the best interest of national security that they do. If you lose the ability to build big sticks you lose your power over the world, whether it's efficient or works every time.

"NASA gave Boeing $2 billion more than they gave SpaceX."

I saw this argument in a lot of places. Comparisons like this doesn't have a point without context. And with the context it's not something that you may want to suggest.

Edit: In a nutshell, the starting point is not the same. Crew Dragon is derived from the cargo Dragon created for COTS years ago. The Starliner was made from scratch just for the crew transportation program.

This is not a substantive comment. What context do you think justifies Boeing's higher price here?

Except that Boeing's justification is that they are a "legacy" contractor needing more funding because of their bureaucracy. One which doesn't seem to add much value.

I fail to see the distinction or the point you are trying to make with it.

Boeing was awarded 50% more than SpaceX. If Boeing had to start from scratch why would NASA even bother?

This is pretty much nonsense. Crew Dragon is a huge step from Cargo Dragon and its not like Boing has never before had money from the government to develop stuff like that.

The reason that Boeing gets more money is that companies could set their own price, and Boeing was very confident that they would be selected whatever the price.

And this came true, they set their price 1.5 billion higher then Sierra Nevada and got selected anyway.

It really seems like this might be the start of the collapse of an incompetent monopoly. Lots of new business opportunities here, this is a rare event.

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