WSJ Reports Boeing To Beat SpaceX For Manned Taxi To ISS

PvtVoid writes The Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) that NASA is poised to award a key contract for manned transport to the International Space Station to Boeing over rival SpaceX: "Recent signals from the Obama administration, according to the officials, indicate that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's leadership has concluded on a preliminary basis that Boeing's proposed capsule offers the least risky option, as well as the one most likely to be ready to transport U.S. crews to the international space station within three years. The officials cautioned that a last-minute shift by NASA chief Charles Bolden, who must vet the decision, could change the result of the closely watched competition." Here is a non-paywalled link to an article at CNET.

Comments

Re:Imagine That...

[LWATCDR]

"Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new"
???
Long-time government contractor with a history of delivering working system.
B-B2, E-3, KC,RC,C-135, P-8, and on and on.

Re:Imagine That...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new, lucrative NASA contract. Newsflash: SpaceX was never going to get that contract.

You mean like Boeing bid for the KC-X deal, lost to EADS/Northrop-Grumman, then successfully lobbied for a restart of the bidding process and submitted a bid that secured them the contract leading to EADS deciding not to pursue the deal any further because they thought Boeing's winning bid was so low that Boeing would probably lose money on it? But fret not, I'm sure Uncle Sam will see to it that any losses suffered by Boeing will be made good through some form of kickback and I'm sure that John and Jane Q, Taxpayer will be only too happy to foot the bill. What is interesting about this story is that even US companies are now suffering the same fate as EADS did and falling victim to the Boeing lobby. I sincerely hope that Space X humiliates Boeing and their Washington cronies by somehow outdoing them in cost effectiveness with their private ventures. If there is any single player in the US Aerospace industry that seriously needs to be taught a lesson it's Boeing.

If true, it's probably a good thing for Space X

[Hussman32]

When you get a government contract, you get government accountability requirements, especially with the high visibility contracts. I'm not kidding when I say the accountability requirements are often more than the technical requirements, and I wonder if SpaceX would be able to shift their business model to handling them. The second source contract may be perfect so they can use it as bridge money before they start doing private space flights.