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by fzeindl 645 days ago
> Boeing has really struggled in making the cultural transition from old style cost-plus government contracting.

How is this old style? At least in software development / IT-consulting in Europe cost plus is done all the time now, since there were too many legal battles about fixed price not being finished according to spec.
2 comments
ted_dunning 645 days ago
The history of IT-consulting in Europe does not really inform us of the history of aerospace development in the US.

The fact is, space development used to be done on a cost-plus basis (old style) and is now moving strongly to a fixed cost basis (the current facts of life).

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skissane 645 days ago
> How is this old style? At least in software development / IT-consulting in Europe cost plus is done all the time now,

For NASA, it is old style: why offer cost-plus contracting when companies like SpaceX are willing to accept a firm fixed price contract and actually deliver on it?

There is no way that SpaceX is making a profit on their lunar lander contract (Starship HLS). But SpaceX doesn’t care because they are betting the company on Starship and returning humans to the moon after over 50 years is an amazing opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of their platform to the world. Boeing isn’t betting the company on a spaceship. Taking a multi-billion dollar loss on a contract today and hoping you’ll make it back somehow some years down the track is not the Boeing way - at least not nowadays

> since there were too many legal battles about fixed price not being finished according to spec.

Maybe in space it helps to have clearly defined success criteria - either it gets there and back in one piece, or it doesn’t. In software the criteria for success are often a lot less clear.

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ivewonyoung 645 days ago
> There is no way that SpaceX is making a profit on their lunar lander contract (Starship HLS). But SpaceX doesn’t care because they are betting the company on Starship and returning humans to the moon after over 50 years is an amazing opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of their platform to the world

So in essence SpaceX is subsidizing the government and taxpayer, while the usual rhetoric is that SpaceX is getting government subsidies, not sure why folks cannot understand the different between a government contract to deliver something and a subsidy.

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