Gedmark: Space Shuttle era cost-plus contracts entrenched legacy defense contractors
John Gedmark · The Evolution of the Satellite Economy · Oct 6, 2023 · at 5:22
John Gedmark, co-founder and CEO of satellite startup Astranis, discusses how government procurement structures in the 1980s entrenched legacy defense contractors before the modern commercial space era.
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“Then we entered into this era in the eighties, basically with the space shuttle, things got very entrenched with these cost plus contracts. And the major aerospace defense contractors were basically able to lock in, you know, these programs at a cost of billions of dollars, and they were just not going anywhere.”
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