Re:Nelson testifies cost-plus contracts have been a “plague”...
by bluGill on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @05:06PM
(#31265849)
The government is better able to set a fixed budget though. R&D as in do X hours of work on FTL is much better than deliver FTL (I intentionally picked something impossible - though in a the world R&D should be about things you think are possible but are not sure of)
Re:Nelson testifies cost-plus contracts have been a “plague”...
by gpm on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @05:33PM
(#31266121)
What you're describing isn't a cost plus contract, it's a fixed cost contract for a study (assuming cost/hour is fixed). These exist, they're frequently a good idea.
Cost plus would be "deliver a FTL ship, we'll pay you X * costs, no it doesn't really matter if you go 10x over what you initially quoted us for the work and still don't have the thing". You can see why contractors under that model are willing to make unrealistic quotes and promises about FTL, or for a real world example why SLS is many years and many billions of dollars behind schedule.
If one doesn't exist, that should just be a sign that the government really shouldn't be providing it either though, because it isn't profitable. The government isn't somehow better placed to insure R&D work (or whatever you want to call the work being discussed) than any other insurance company is.