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NASA snubbed SpaceX, common sense to overpay Boeing for astronaut launches, says audit
A detailed government audit has revealed that NASA went out of its way to overpay Boeing for its Commercial Crew Program (CCP) astronaut launch services, making a mockery of its fixed-price contract with the company and blatantly snubbing SpaceX throughout the process.
Over the last several years, the NASA inspector general has published a number of increasingly discouraging reports about Boeing’s behavior and track-record as a NASA contractor, and November 14th’s report is possibly the most concerning yet. On November 14th, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) published a damning audit titled “NASA’s Management of Crew Transportation to the International Space Station [ISS]” (PDF).
Offering more than 50 pages of detailed analysis of behavior that was at best inept and at worst deeply corrupt, OIG’s analysis uncovered some uncomfortable revelations about NASA’s relationship with Boeing in a different realm than usual: NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Begun in the 2010s in an effort to develop multiple redundant commercial alternatives to the Space Shuttle, prematurely canceled before a US alternative was even on the horizon, the CCP ultimately awarded SpaceX and Boeing major development contracts in September 2014.
NASA awarded fixed-cost contracts worth $4.2 billion and $2.6 billion to Boeing and SpaceX, respectively, to essentially accomplish the same goals: design, build, test, and fly new spacecraft capable of transporting NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The intention behind fixed-price contracts was to hold contractors responsible for any delays they might incur over the development of human-rated spacecraft, a task NASA acknowledged as challenging but far from unprecedented.
Off the rails
The most likely trigger of the bizarre events that would unfold a few years down the road began in part on June 28th, 2015 and culminated on September 1st, 2016, the dates of the two catastrophic failures SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has suffered since its 2010 debut. In the most generous possible interpretation of the OIG’s findings, NASA headquarters and CCP managers may have been shaken and not thinking on an even keel after SpaceX’s second major failure in a little over a year.
Under this stress, the agency may have ignored common sense and basic contracting due-diligence, leading “numerous officials” to sign off on a plan that would subvert Boeing’s fixed-price contract, paying the company an additional $287 million (~7%) to prevent a perceived gap in NASA astronaut access to the ISS. This likely arose because NASA briefly believed that SpaceX’s failures could cause multiple years of delays, making Boeing the only available crew transport provider for a significant period of time. Starliner was already delayed by more than a year, making it increasingly unlikely that Boeing alone would be able to ensure continuous NASA access to the ISS.
As NASA attempted to argue in its response to the audit, “the final price [increase] was agreed to by NASA and Boeing and was reviewed and approved by numerous NASA officials at the Kennedy Space Center and Headquarters”. In the heat of the moment, perhaps those officials forgot that Boeing had already purchased several Russian Soyuz seats to sell to NASA or tourists, and perhaps those officials missed the simple fact that those seats and some elementary schedule tweaks could have almost entirely alleviated the perceived “access gap” with minimal cost and effort.
The OIG audit further implied that the timing of a Boeing proposal – submitted just days after NASA agreed to pay the company extra to prevent that access gap – was suspect.
“Five days after NASA committed to pay $287.2 million in price increases for four commercial crew missions, Boeing submitted an official proposal to sell NASA up to five Soyuz seats for $373.5 million for missions during the same time period. In total, Boeing received $660.7 million above the fixed prices set in the CCtCap pricing tables to pay for an accelerated production timetable for four crew missions and five Soyuz seats.”
NASA OIG — November 14th, 2019 [PDF]
In other words, NASA officials somehow failed to realize or remember that Boeing owned multiple Soyuz seats during “prolonged negotiations” (p. 24) with Boeing and subsequently awarded Boeing an additional $287M to expedite Starliner production and preparations, thus averting an access gap. The very next week, Boeing asked NASA if it wanted to buy five Soyuz seats it had already acquired to send NASA astronauts to the ISS.
Bluntly speaking, this series of events has three obvious explanations, none of them particularly reassuring.
- Boeing intentionally withheld an obvious (partial) solution to a perceived gap in astronaut access to the ISS, exploiting NASA’s panic to extract a ~7% premium from its otherwise fixed-price Starliner development contract.
- Through gross negligence and a lack of basic contracting due-diligence, NASA ignored obvious (and cheaper) possible solutions at hand, taking Boeing’s word for granted and opening up the piggy bank.
- A farcical ‘crew access analysis’ study ignored multiple obvious and preferable solutions to give “numerous NASA officials” an excuse to violate fixed-price contracting principles and pay Boeing a substantial premium.
Extortion with a friendly smile
The latter explanation, while possibly the worst and most corruption-laden, is arguably the likeliest choice based on the history of NASA’s relationship with Boeing. In fact, a July 2019 report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that NASA was consistently paying Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of “award fees” as part of the company’s SLS booster (core stage) production contract, which is no less than four years behind schedule and $1.8 billion over budget. From 2014 to 2018, NASA awarded Boeing a total of $271M in award fees, a practice meant to award a given contractor’s excellent performance.
In several of those years, NASA reviews reportedly described Boeing’s performance as “good”, “very good”, and “excellent”, all while Boeing repeatedly fumbled SLS core stage production, adding years of delays to the SLS rocket’s launch debut. This is to say that “numerous NASA officials” were also presumably more than happy to give Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars in awards even as the company was and is clearly a big reason why the SLS program continues to fail to deliver.
Ultimately, although NASA’s concern about SpaceX’s back-to-back Falcon 9 failures and some combination of ineptitude, ignorance, and corruption all clearly played a role, the fact remains that NASA – according to the inspector general – never approached SpaceX as part of their 2016/2017 efforts to prevent a ‘crew access gap’. Given that the CCP has two partners, that decision was highly improper regardless of the circumstances and is made even more inexplicable by the fact that NASA was apparently well aware that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon had significantly shorter lead times and far lower costs compared to Starliner.
This would have meant that had NASA approached SpaceX to attempt to mitigate the access gap, SpaceX could have almost certainly done it significantly cheaper and faster, or at minimum injected a bit of good-faith competition into the endeavor.
Finally and perhaps most disturbingly of all, NASA OIG investigators were told by “several NASA officials” that – in spite of several preferable alternatives – they ultimately chose to sign off Boeing’s demanded price increases because they were worried that Boeing would quit the Commercial Crew Program entirely without it. Boeing and NASA unsurprisingly denied this in their official responses to the OIG audit, but a US government inspector generally would never publish such a claim without substantial confidence and plenty of evidence to support it.
According to OIG sources, “senior CCP officials believed that due to financial considerations, Boeing could not continue as a commercial crew provider unless the contractor received the higher prices.” A lot remains unsaid, like why those officials believed that Boeing’s full withdrawal from CCP was a serious possibility and how they came to that conclusion, enough to make it impossible to conclude that Boeing legitimately threatened to quit in lieu of NASA payments.
All things considered, these fairly damning revelations should by no means take away from the excellent work Boeing engineers and technicians are trying to do to design, build, and launch Starliner. However, they do serve to draw a fine line between the mindsets and motivations of Boeing and SpaceX. One puts profit, shareholders, and itself above all else, while the other is trying hard to lower the cost of spaceflight and enable a sustainable human presence on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Tesla’s long-promised Cybercab is finally available for personal purchase, at least for a select few in the Austin area. But it’s far from a straightforward ownership experience.
The $29,990 price tag comes with a stack of restrictions that redefine what “owning” the vehicle actually means. The two-seat, steering-wheel-free Robotaxi, previously limited to Tesla’s own fleet, now carries contractual terms that limit where it can go, how it can be used, and whether it can even move without an active paid subscription.
Opening Night of Orders
Late on November 13, Tesla announced that select customers were being invited to order a Cybercab for personal use.
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
The estimated purchase price is $29,990 before taxes, paired with a non-refundable $1,000 deposit and an estimated December 2026 delivery in Austin, Texas. The first month of the required :Autonomy Subscription,” priced at $299 per month is included.
After that, the vehicle needs an active subscription to operate at all. The announcement confirmed that customer sales had begun, albeit on an invite-only basis rather than a public order page.
The Fine Print for Buyers
BREAKING: Tesla’s Cybercab Autonomy Subscription terms are now live. A paid monthly subscription is required.
1/12 Tesla: “Your Cybercab will not operate without an active Autonomy Subscription. 🧵 https://t.co/umVk6DJE2x— Spencer (@scotsrule08) November 13, 2026
For those invited to order, the agreements (Cybercab Order Agreement, Terms of Use, and Autonomy Subscription Agreement) impose significant constraints. Major points include:
- A mandatory Autonomy Subscription (currently listed at $299 per month on the order screen, first month included) is required; without it, the Cybercab will not operate.
- Personal, non-commercial use only; ride-hailing, Robotaxi network participation, delivery, or rental requires separate written authorization or product enablement from Tesla.
- Operation restricted to Tesla-enabled Robotaxi geofences and supported service areas, which the company can expand, shrink, or alter; the vehicle may be technologically prevented from operating outside them.
- No unauthorized modifications (including wraps, window tint, or wheel changes) without Tesla or an authorized provider.
- Restricted resale and transfer: written permission required, with contractual damages of at least $50,000 (or full transaction value if higher) for unauthorized sales; Tesla also reserves repurchase rights at a company-determined fair market value, with the owner covering return costs.
- Safety or improper-use “strikeouts” (three or more) can trigger a one-week suspension of autonomous features without prorated refund.
- Owners remain responsible for insurance, registration, charging, parking, and general cleaning; the subscription covers certain maintenance items such as tires, windshields, filters, and camera cleaning, plus limited towing.
- Manual controls on the touchscreen allow only short-distance movement up to about 2 mph and require a valid driver’s license; they are not for public-road driving.
Why These Terms Might Exist
Tesla’s approach prioritizes control over a vehicle designed without traditional human controls and intended primarily as transport-as-a-service, something that Musk has hinted toward for some time now. Restricting commercial use and modifications could be as much of a software integrity, safety, and data collection effort as it is a safety effort.
Fleet consistency could also be in regulatory scrutiny early on in the Cybercab’s days of public operation.
The subscription model generates ongoing revenue beyond the low vehicle price and ensures the car remains connected and updatable, something that will keep the Cybercab as safe as possible as new updates roll out.
Buyback and resale limits reduce the risk of vehicles circulating outside Tesla’s operational and service ecosystem.
It apperas that personal ownership is secondary to the broader Robotaxi network strategy, as Musk has previously stated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned.
Pickup Locations and Musk’s Pricing View
Initial deliveries are estimated for Austin, but personal vehicles are able to operate in any of Tesla’s Robotaxi geofences:
It’ll work unsupervised inside all the same geo locations as @robotaxi, just serving the owners’ needs.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) November 14, 2026
Those who have been invited to order can also have their personal Cybercab delivered to numerous locations in Texas, including:
- Austin
- Dallas
- Houston
- San Antonio
- Fort Worth
Interesting that you can choose a delivery city https://t.co/SknDz9rFzo
— Whole Mars Catalog (@wholemars) November 14, 2026
As far as the monthly “Autonomy Subscription,” it appears Musk already wants it to be low. He acknowledged last night on X that the subscription price is too high. Along with detailing that the Cybercab will be available nationwide as regulatory approval is received, Musk said the monthly fee should match the cost of FSD and Premium Connectivity, which is about $115 per month.
The launch marks a milestone for unsupervised personal autonomous vehicles, but the fine print makes clear that buyers are purchasing a highly constrained asset whose usefulness is tightly bound to Tesla’s software, service network, and geographic approvals.
Tesla has officially put the Cybercab up for sale, revealing a bargain price and a $299 per month “Autonomy Subscription” that could hit customer hands as soon as December.
The offer requires a $299 monthly Autonomy Subscription, with the first month included in the purchase price, along with a $1,000 non-refundable order deposit. Tesla’s ordering interface shows deliveries targeted for Austin, Texas.
Tesla says that the Cybercab is making transportation more efficient, affordable and accessible than ever before, and that buyers can order their own Cybercab for personal use.
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: Tesla Cybercab is officially on sale for $29,990 with a $299/mo “Autonomy Subscription”
Delivery slotted for December! HUGE!
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated robotaxi, a gold-finished, two-passenger vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, designed from the outset for unsupervised autonomous operation. It has been in limited Robotaxi service in Austin since September 2026, operating alongside Tesla’s larger fleet of Model Y vehicles.
Production takes place at Gigafactory Texas, which launched earlier this year. Tesla has stated for some time that it planned to put Cybercabs on sale by the end of the year, and it looks like they will come through on that promise if everything goes according to plan.
The Autonomy Subscription is mandatory for the vehicle to operate because it is void of a steering wheel and pedals. Tesla notes that the subscription and regular vehicle maintenance are required, indicating that personal owners will depend on the company’s software and service infrastructure rather than traditional ownership models.
One month of the subscription is included with purchase and subsequent months are billed separately until canceled.
This limited personal-sales opening marks a shift from Tesla’s earlier emphasis on fleet and transport-as-a-service operations. During the Q3 2026 Earnings Call, executives indicated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned and used for rideshare service, while still aiming to place some vehicles with customers by year-end.
Elon Musk has previously targeted a price below $30,000, which was a huge point of emphasis for the Cybercab being the central point of Tesla’s “transportation-as-a-service” model.
Availability remains restricted to invited customers rather than a public order page, and the initial deliveries are expected only in the Austin area where unsupervised Robotaxi operations are already active. Buyers will need to accept the geographic and operational constraints of current autonomous deployment, as the vehicle cannot be driven manually outside supported zones.
The move gives a small number of early buyers the chance to own Tesla’s dedicated autonomous vehicle at the long-discussed sub-$30,000 price point, while the bulk of production continues to support the company’s expanding Robotaxi network.
UPDATE: The FAA has granted the license for Starship Flight 15.
Starship Flight 15 License has been granted by the FAA!
Let’s go! https://t.co/DugsgjvYAe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
SpaceX is set to attempt its 15th test flight of Starship this evening from Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX is targeting Starship Flight 15 for a launch as soon as today, Friday, November 13, pending an FAA Flight License, during a 75-minute window that opens at 4:45 p.m. CT (5:45 p.m. ET) from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The flight remains pending final regulatory approval.
WATCH Starship Flight 15 here:
https://t.co/C6GnCHyF8p
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
The mission, using Booster 22 and Ship 42, aims to achieve the first full recovery of an orbital launch system. Primary objectives include a tower catch of the Super Heavy booster roughly six and a half minutes after liftoff and the first-ever tower catch of a Starship upper stage after more than 22 hours in space.
SpaceX will perform Starship double catch attempt with Flight 15
Between those catches, Ship 42 is planned to enter a low Earth orbit of about 275 km, complete roughly 14 orbits, and deploy 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites (Starlink Group 31-2). Three of those satellites carry cameras to inspect the ship’s heat shield in orbit and help controllers decide whether the vehicle is healthy enough for a return to the tower.
Contingency ocean splashdown options exist if either stage is not cleared for catch.
To watch the attempt, check the link to the broadcast in both X posts in this article. The live webcast is scheduled to begin about 30 minutes before liftoff and is planned to continue through the ship catch the next day, with the possibility of extended onboard views during the orbital coast via Starlink.
Because the schedule is dynamic, check back here or on our social media channels for the latest updates on window timing and regulatory status. A successful dual catch would mark a major milestone toward making Starship a rapidly reusable rocket capable of frequent flights.
WATCH Starship Flight 15 here:
https://t.co/C6GnCHyF8p
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
Tesla Cybercab arrives with steep ownership fine print
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
