SpaceX becomes NASA’s second-largest vendor, surpassing Boeing

arstechnica.com

23 points·socialdemocrat··6 comments

> The company's Starliner spacecraft is also an important contract, but it doesn't look like a long-term moneymaker for the company. To fulfill its Space Station crew needs for the remainder of this decade, NASA recently decided that it would purchase a significant majority of crew flights from SpaceX rather than Boeing. This was likely due to price considerations and the operational readiness of Crew Dragon.

Given the recent details about how much they’re losing on star liner, I wonder if there’s any chance they will cancel it?

They've signed a contract with the US government, now they have to honour it. Legally, they can't cancel it without NASA's agreement. They could try to force NASA's hand – but that would severely damage their chances of getting any other US government contracts in the future-not just NASA, but the rest too–including the military, which makes Boeing roughly 10x as much money as NASA does. So the cost of trying to “cancel” Starliner would be vastly more than whatever they are losing on this particular contract. Poor Boeing just has to wear it.

So in other words, this is just another example of how easy government money makes you lazy, complacent and ever more greedy.

It seems the effects may have spilled over into the passenger plane side of the industry.

Are you talking about Boeing being complacent and greedy, or SpaceX? I'd agree with the former, but not the latter.

Boeing. SpaceX just ate a big chunk of their lunch.

Well here's to hoping they don't fall into the same trap.

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