Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Welllll - the US armed forces are as interested as anyone else in not having a sole supplier - Boeing get a good run you can bet LM or Northrop will get the next big contract
TTBH they have much the same capabilities and so it's just a matter of adjusting the spec to slightly favour one or other of the deserving - Boeing refused to bid as they reckoned it was going to Northrop anyway
Afaik they both used Aerojet as their rocket motor supplier, so when Northrop bought Aerojet, Boeing wanted to redo their proposal but the USAF refused to delay the competition.
The sad thing is that the Space-X example shows that the corporate overhead at least triples the cost of US aerospace products. Continuing such monopoly procurements is demonstrably the best way to minimize military purchasing power.