November 09, 2004
Usual Suspects Indeed

Reuters reports that Northrop Grumman is now teaming with Boeing on the Constellation project:

NASA will award two development contracts next year, potentially worth billions of dollars, for the spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle for carrying astronauts to and from space.

One of those two contractors will then be chosen in 2008 to actually build and test the Crew Exploration Vehicle, a cornerstone of the plan President Bush announced in January to build settlements on the moon.

The Northrop and Boeing pairing reduces the competition for those contracts, with only one other major player, Lockheed Martin Corp., left in the field.
[emphasis added]

Not much of a downselect involved, when there are only two realistic competitors/teams for the project.

(And is that a stab in the back for LockMart, or what?)

Posted by T.L. James on November 9, 2004 09:33 PM

Comments

Wait a minute. This is a bad thing for the VSE, not a good one. The whole point of making those two companies compete is to drive down cost with competition. For them to "team up" like this smacks of price fixing and forming a "rocket cartel". If nothing else, this should fly in the face of anti-monopolistic price collusion laws. It's like how two stores in my city recently got busted for making a deal not to lower the price of milk below $3.50 a gallon.

I highly doubt that Boeing and NG are doing this for the benefit of the human race rather than for their shareholders.



Posted by: Mark at November 15, 2004 07:59 AM

I didn't say it was a *good* thing for the VSE. You're preaching to the choir here, Mark.



Posted by: T.L. James at November 15, 2004 07:03 PM

I know. I just got so uptight about it after reading it that I felt the need to underscore how bad this looks.



Posted by: Mark Zinthefer at November 16, 2004 08:37 AM