What does being a government contractor have to do with the fact that Scaled Composites had to abide by the rules of the Ansari X Prize in order to collect their $10 million?
Being a government aerospace contractor means that they are working closely with NASA and the DOD.
My wife is a government contractor and she works out of our house in Savannah Georgia.
Is she under contract to do whatever the government tells her to do? Does she report to and work directly under a government manager?
My point was that government contractors are really just temp workers the government hires to manage directly. There really isn't any difference between a government employee and a government contractor. They are both given the same secret clearance and sign the same classified agreements. The government uses contractors because they are cheaper and can be terminated at any time without having to worry about benefits.
Raytheon, for example, is just a face name for the government. There really isn't a Raytheon. It's a temp agency. Their employees are all working in government facilities for government managers. The same goes for the other government contractors. They're all temp agencies.
She works for a private company that does contract work for the DoD. The government does not run the company, there are no stationed security forces on the premises. They do have to abide by certain security measures, but that is only to keep the contract, only the security guards, paid by the company not the government, the president (my wife) and the owner of the company are allowed on the premises after 6pm. Everyone else security card only works during certain hours of the day. When I visit I am escorted on the the premises by the security guard, they are just regular security people like at the mall and stuff. They do have other contracts that they work on as well. Not everyone employed in the company works with the government contract, in fact they hire between 10 and 20 interns every summer for work on their other contracts through the university. Their other contracts take them all over the world, to many different nations, the government doesn't care as long as their work and research is done. No one in the company is an employee of the government, all checks have the companies name on them not the US government's. They conduct the company affairs the way they see fit, the government has nothing to do with the day to day operations. They report time, research and findings and that is it. Every few years they go to Washington and reapply for the contract, basing the previous years of work on the money they ask for (whether they need more or less). The only thing that they can't do is discuss this government work with people outside of the project, specifics anyway, even I know the general gist of the work that is being done. They sign the contracts saying that the accounting for the project, time, materials, research needs, special items will all be accounted for; then they sign nondisclosure agreements and that is it. If they don't keep track of everything they lose the contract. That is the extent of the control the government has, how much money if any they are given, granted all that is based on the work they do and records they keep. All their computers are purchased through a special process through Apple, yes the whole company runs on Mac, all retired computers are sent to a government office to wiped clean; after that they can even purchase the computers back if they want, this happens every two years. You are way off Tom.