Cost plus is only defensible if the goal is short-term and all-important. If an asteroid were barreling towards Earth, yeah, sure, throw a trillion dollars at it.
An open-ended goal of expanding the scope of human endeavor in space (and this landing is just a manifestation of the bigger goal) requires building an efficient industry around the goal. To that end cost-plus must go.
Cost plus doesn’t make things go faster. The only thing that makes contracts go faster is an award for early delivery, and you can do that with any procurement vehicle. Cost-plus is for when you don’t know what you need. Fixed cost is for when you do. Fixed cost is going to kill you in change fees if you’re wrong, cost-plus will kill you in a bunch of other fees. All tools are useful.
Cost plus is only defensible if the goal is short-term and all-important. If an asteroid were barreling towards Earth, yeah, sure, throw a trillion dollars at it.
An open-ended goal of expanding the scope of human endeavor in space (and this landing is just a manifestation of the bigger goal) requires building an efficient industry around the goal. To that end cost-plus must go.
Cost plus doesn’t make things go faster. The only thing that makes contracts go faster is an award for early delivery, and you can do that with any procurement vehicle. Cost-plus is for when you don’t know what you need. Fixed cost is for when you do. Fixed cost is going to kill you in change fees if you’re wrong, cost-plus will kill you in a bunch of other fees. All tools are useful.