Topline: Boeing, the engineering company behind the failed mission that left two astronauts stranded in space, received $6.4 billion in contracts from NASA between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, according to federal data reviewed by OpenTheBooks. Only CalTech, which manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, received more money.
Key facts: Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft experienced a thruster malfunction during its first manned flight last June. The ship was forced to return to Earth unmanned, leaving Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore stuck at the International Space Station.
NASA’s inspector general later released an audit of Boeing’s Exploration Upper Stage launch system — a project unrelated to Starliner, but one that sheds light on deeper issues within the company.
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The audit found “quality control issues” with Boeing’s work attributed to “the lack of a sufficient number of trained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing.”
The Defense Contract Management Agency issued 71 Corrective Action Requests to Boeing between 2021 and 2023, asking the company to fix its quality control problems. But the company was “nonresponsive in taking corrective actions,” the inspector general wrote.
The audit found the its part of the Artemis IV mission — which is supposed to take us back to the moon — is six years behind schedule and an estimated $1.8 billion over budget. It’s now expected to cost $2.8 billion by the time it is used in 2028.
The inspector general recommended that NASA work with Boeing to create a training program for the company’s employees and give Boeing “financial penalties” for not meeting quality control standards.
Boeing’s work on the launch system is documented online, but the public would have no way of finding it by checking USAspending.gov, which is supposed to catalog all federal contracts. The website lists $2.7 billion sent to Boeing for the Ares I project, which has not existed since 2010.
A NASA spokesperson said the money had been shifted to the space launcher system at the request of Congress.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Summary: The federal government would be wise to investigate companies’ quality control before awarding them billions of dollars worth of contracts, not years after the fact.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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