NASA Pushes FAR, Far Away for Commercial Crew Program

In a recent report, GAO questioned whether NASA could ensure adequate price competition using a FAR-based acquisition approach for its Commercial Crew Program because, according to the GAO, substantially reduced funding would jeopardize NASA’s plan to award multiple contracts for the program’s integrated design phase.  NASA concurred, and on December 15, 2011, announced that it would abandon using FAR-based contracting for the next stage of the program and instead would rely on “multiple, competitively awarded Space Act Agreements” to foster competition and give NASA “the flexibility to adjust technical direction, milestones and funding” in order to decrease reliance on foreign governments for sending Americans into space.