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> At what point does NASA need to pull the plug on Starliner...

At this point, I assume they're not doing so as a punishment. It doesn't cost NASA much to keep Boeing's feet to the fire here.

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Commercial Crew is fixed-price contracts, whereas cost-plus contracts has been the norm in the US aerospace industry. Boeing is the one bleeding money here.

Like I said, it doesn't cost them much. It's not zero cost - people have to talk to Boeing, yell at them when things are broken, review fixes and proposals, etc.

If NASA's real goal is to have a reliable second-source provider, and their endless futzing around with Boeing is incompatible with that (due to limited NASA staffing, politics, or whatever) - then keeping Boeing's feet to the fire does carry high costs for NASA.

I suspect they think of it like a lottery ticket - there's a small but slim chance that Boeing eventually spends enough billions fixing it that it successfully flies. All NASA has to do is staff enough folks to go "nope fix that too"; the lion's share of the costs are Boeing's.

Sadly, "it successfully flies" is quite different from "it is a reliable second source, over time".

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