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US Air Force Overstepped In SpaceX Certification
Rambo Tribble writes: An internal review commissioned by Air Force Secretary Deborah James has concluded that Air Force personnel tasked with evaluating SpaceX's certification treated it as a design review, going so far as to dictate organizational changes in the company. This was judged contrary to the intention of promoting a competitive environment. The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, concluded, "The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach. Both teams need to adjust."
"The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach."
But this is what Boeing and Lockheed wanted. Keeping in mind Boeing/Lockheed have a space launch vehicle non compete consortium in partnership with the U.S. government. The Air Force has done absolutely whatever it could to prevent them from using Space X - and the very cosy relationship with Lockheed and Boeing probably has something to do with this. Just look at who's profits might be threatened and follow the money.
As a public servant, I feel there's a lot of truth to wasted money and inefficiencies in government processes but most of it is the doing of politicians who hold all the real power. Contradictory legislation and the fear of taking risks by senior officials forces the public service to protect themselves with a ridiculous amount bureaucracy.
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
Actually ULA (boeing, lm, etc) gets sweetheart contracts too. For example their launch contracts don't include fixed costs like launch facilities and many other parts of the "infrastructure". ULA gets a separate contract to pay for all the fixed costs. That may be a good idea to make sure this infrastructure is ready and available independently of what the launch schedule may be but the fact remains that SpaceX includes such infrastructure costs into their launch contracts. And SpaceX launch contracts are still far less expensive than ULA.