Boeing's Starliner (CST-100) - Discussion Thread 6

[sstli2]

I gave my opinion on this many months and many pages ago. It's not really costing NASA much to keep this going. Boeing is the one really taking the financial hit. And if they can't get it done after another test flight, they'll leave on their own volition, no need to force them out.

Some here are concerned with sending messages or punishing bad contractors or other performative nonsense. Trust me, not one prospective NASA contractor is looking at this situation and all of the circumstances around it - the cost overruns, the massive negative publicity, the drain on engineering resources - and saying gee, I wish that was me.

As I've mentioned before, we've long been in the situation where only a single contractor is routinely fulfilling these firm-fixed price contracts on-time, cheaply, and with quality. The solution isn't to funnel everything to that one contractor and call it a day. The solution is to encourage more entrants to take the risk so that others may achieve that success. And working with a deficient contractor by modifying their contract and extending them opportunities to perform is a great way to encourage that by signaling that they won't be out there on their own just waiting to fail.