NASA has labelled the botched 2024 Starliner mission, which left two astronauts stranded in space for months, a “Type A” mishap, on par with fatal shuttle disasters of the past, in a newly published report.
The category is the space agency’s most severe, reserved for incidents causing more than $2m (£1.49 m) in damage, the loss of a vehicle or its control, or deaths.
On Thursday, Nasa’s new boss, Jared Isaacman, blasted Boeing, which built Starliner, and the space agency for poor decision-making and leadership that led to the failed mission.
I think we’re aligned on the core issue but with nuanced perspectives. Regulatory capture is indeed the established academic term for the phenomenon you describe, precisely capturing how agencies meant to protect public interest end up advancing industry priorities through mechanisms like the revolving doorbetween Boeing and Congress.
Where I’d argue the Starliner narrative: While Boeing’s participation provided political cover for Commercial Crew legislation, SpaceX’s 2010 Falcon 9 debut and subsequent rapid repeatability fundamentally reset industry expectations. The success of fixed-price cargo contracts demonstrated reusable rockets and rapid iteration were possible, proving cost-plus models weren’t inevitable. This technological inflection point–not Boeing’s involvement–created the political space for NASA to demand accountability in human spaceflight.
Boeing’s Starliner struggles directly stem from its post-1997 merger culture shift, where McDonnell Douglas’ profit-focused management supplanted engineering excellence. This same culture produced both the 737 MAX flaws and Starliner’s valve failures, showing how regulatory capture enabled systemic safety failures when oversight bodies delegated excessive authority to Boeing.
The breakthrough came not from Boeing’s inclusion but from SpaceX proving fixed-price development could work, breaking the cost-plus mentality that had entrenched inefficiency for decades. Had Commercial Crew relied solely on legacy contractors, the same capture cycle would likely have persisted. SpaceX’s existence changed the incentive structure, not Boeing’s participation
Its close, but I don’t think that’s correct for this situation.
You’re missing one key aspect of the definition of regulatory capture. NASA isn’t a regulatory body in the case with Boeing, its the customer.
For it to be regulator capture NASA would have to be acting as a regulatory body, and the corrupt company would have to have influence over policy that they benefit from outside of the regulator. An example of regulatory capture was what lead up to one aspect of the 2008 Financial Crisis. Banks have to have a US government regulatory that sets policy and policies the actions of the bank. Prior to 2008 banks could choose their regulator which their choices between the FDIC, Federal Reserve, or a little known regulator call Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). It won’t surprise you to find out that the OTS was a tiny little shop which only had a few employees, and banks figured out they could write their own policy, get the OTS to approve it, and get away with actions the banks would normally be barred from doing. This lead to risky bank behavior, and the failure of banks and a large contributor to the Financial Crisis of 2008.
NASA wasn’t acting as a regulator to Boeing for Starliner. NASA wasn’t setting government regulations which Boeing had to follow for all vehicles Boeing produced for spaceflight. NASA was a customer giving specs to its contractor, but the contractor had corporate power over its customer, NASA. So yes this would be something like corporate capture but it wasn’t regulatory capture.
We agree with this. This was my whole thesis in my original post.
Not really. It wasn’t SpaceX alone, and it wasn’t because SpaceX as rapid. It was because it was it was cheap. SpaceX wasn’t alone in this though. The other contract winner of Commercial Cargo contract, Orbital Sciences, was also cheap and had nothing to do with rapid repeatability. Both were, however, cheap, compared to the cost-plus contract providers that came before them.
I disagree entirely. SpaceX reusabilty had zero impact on the success of the initial Commercial Cargo or Commercial Crew contract adoption. How do we know this? Four ways:
When SpaceX started flying cargo, reusuabilty wasn’t even a thing yet on Falcon 9. Reusability arrived later during the contract, but the fixed price contracts had already been signed and SpaceX received no extra money from the contract derived from reusability.
SpaceX wasn’t the only provider of Commercial Cargo. The other was Orbital Sciences (later OrbitalATK, later yet Northrop Grumman) with their completely disposable rocket and cargo module (Cygnus). Again, when Orbital signed their contract for Commercial Cargo the prices were set. Whether Orbital threw away their Antares rocket after launch (which they did) or not, had no bearing on the Commercial Cargo contracts.
No part of Starliner was reusable at the time of contact signing for Commercial Crew. Not the core stage, not the second stage, not the SRBs, not the crew vehicle. If reusabilty was so much of a factor for Commercial Crew how did Boeing, that had zero usability, not only win a Commercial Crew contract, but also was the highest paid of the two contact winners?
If reusabilty was such an important factor in Commercial Crew selection, why was Boeing, with zero reusabilty, chosen, but not Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (today known as Sierra Space) Dreamchaser vehicle NOT chose when it was a reusable crew vehicle from day 1?
We agree on all the reasons Boeing sucks today.
That simply isn’t true. Again, SpaceX wasn’t the only Fixed Price space contractor. Orbital Sciences was too. Also, I remember pieces quotes from government hearings where SpaceX was criticized as not being up-to-the-task of handling human flight and that only a company with experience like Boeing would be able to deliver, and without a “sure thing” delivery contractor extending the concept of Fixed Price contracts from Commercial Cargo to Commercial Crew shouldn’t move forward unless a trusted company like Boeing was involved in Commercial Crew. This was also why Boeing was paid so much more than SpaceX for far fewer flights in the contract language.