NASA was able to use venture capital and private equity funding for startups as a budget multiplier for themselves. Who can blame them for wanting to keep doing that?
It’s a different question whether these companies underbid on contracts on purpose to undercut competition and win or accidentally because they don’t know what they’re doing. Either way, that is definitely unsustainable, but we need something in between that and whatever the hell Bechtel is getting paid on their cost plus ML-2 contract.
The idea of privatizing things and opening up the engineering to the private sector actually makes quite a bit of sense to me. The idea of running space travel based on fixed-price bids is absolutely insane.
When things don’t go to plan, which they never do, at least one factor will have to flex: Quality (i.e. safety), mission scope/schedule, or cost. You’re already facing constant pressure for safety to be the thing that flexes, so why would you add additional pressure by assuring that people will lose money if things drag on, so safety is the only thing that can give?
I don’t actually completely disagree with you. I think there are some products and services that should absolutely be fixed price, like launching a rocket for the 400th time, but venturing into truly uncharted and groundbreaking R&D can’t just be fixed price.
I think SLS and ML-2 should be closer to the predictable and firm fixed price end of the spectrum. Dragon, Starliner, and lunar landers are somewhere in the middle. Space nuclear plants or something would be on the cost plus side.
Is there some mechanism of hitting a halfway point between a cost plus and a fixed price contract? Is there some way to get some of the benefits of both fixed price and cost plus contracts?
Maybe cost plus with a maximum price that’s well over expected but in the same order of magnitude? That’s the most common contract model I’ve used in software development. Basically, you’ll pay me by the hour up to a maximum.
I would hazard a guess that it’s because they seem to flex the budget every single time, which either means really shitty planning by a company that is trying to look competent or excess greed by the administration of said company to make them more money.
Maybe keep the cost plus but then add a tax increase on any executives running those companies/in charge of bidding. Something like revenues derived from government contracts get taxed without deductible and in a separate file from civilian business so they can’t do squirrely tax dodging.
And overruns and a systemic inability to plan should be much more significant factors when reviewing past performance.
I might weigh those as much or more than actual experience doing the job. New company vs old company with shit record? I feel like we should lean towards the new one but that’s weak to spinoff/new subsidiary companies from older ones with a trash rep.
Private-Public Partnerships continue to be a curse. Remember when the government did shit and it largely just worked?