Well, not really - the execs just took home a lot more government cheese. Probably.
Wait, as the article points out, we don’t know how much crew dragon cost because SpaceX is private and doesn’t have to report their financials. How are they coming to the conclusion that Starliner cost twice as much? And in both cases, they’re fixed price contracts, so the costs aren’t passed on to the taxpayers.
You make a good point, we don’t actually know the SpaceX’s internal cost for manufacturing and operating Dragon. We do however know much much NASA is paying them for the services, and this article is simply pointing out that based on the information we do know, Starliner has used about 2x the funds that Dragon has. By all accounts, Dragon has been extremely successful. At this point, it actually makes money for SpaceX. That is not the case for Boeing.
Boeing’s leaders blame the structure of fixed-price contracts for the losses on the Starliner program. The aerospace giant has similar fixed-price contracts with the Pentagon to develop new two new Air Force One presidential transport aircraft, Air Force refueling tankers, refueling drones, and trainer airplanes. Boeing has reported losses on those programs, too.
Lol Boeing isn’t structured to avoid cost overruns. Their entire corporate structure has been based around cost plus contracting for government contracts.
Well yeah it’s fuckin Boeing
