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> Boeing developed Starliner under the exact same set of constraints that SpaceX had for crewed dragon. You could be right. My (limited) understanding is that
by wiremine 2y ago
> Boeing developed Starliner under the exact same set of constraints that SpaceX had for crewed dragon.
You could be right. My (limited) understanding is that SpaceX is doing most of their R&D internally, and therefore they don't have the same oversight requirements more NASA-centric projects require. But that was based on an article about Artemis, and not Starliner.
- dotnet00 2y agoNASA officials have previously admitted to applying more oversight to SpaceX than they did to Boeing regarding commercial crew. SpaceX's success is in being self-motivated. The government money is nice, but they want to develop and commercialize the tech anyway and are willing to put their own money into it. As evidence we have all the private Dragon flights, extra capsules built for free-flying missions and their self-developed EVA capability that should launch some time in the coming week. That significantly relaxes the controls compared to Boeing, which is structured around exploiting cost-plus contracting, so every bit of work needs to be tracked and billed, the more time it takes, the better. Starliner was fixed price and they had to put in their own money so they would've been doing the bare minimum to keep the program going. They've only built the bare minimum 2 vehicles they'd need to meet contract requirements, and can only launch on the few launches reserved on a now retired rocket, so no room to commercialize until someone pays them to make it work with Vulcan.