Leaving aside the whole USSR &#x2F; USA thing, that you can have a couple of private companies competing for this is a huge step forward. But more important is that Boeing is not using &quot;cost + plus&quot; pricing. And <i>that</i> small detail is putting an interesting spin on the contest. Specifically that more rigorous cost reviews and more creativity is nominally allowed from the engineering team.<p>The goal here is to build a thriving, <i>private</i> launch capability which can serve multiple markets. In the US at least folks have started thinking about a regulatory structure for how that would work. That is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how do you manage multiple launches going up into LEO across the country not looking like a preemptive nuclear strike :-).