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It's still very possible that the rankings themselves were assigned "for political reasons". Everything's a judgment call, after all, and all kinds of organizations are often at the whims (direct or indirect) of their leaders.

' Boeing's submission was considered "excellent" for "mission suitability," whereas SpaceX got a "very good" ranking. The numerical scores for that category, according to one person familiar with the details, were separated by more than 60 points out of a possible 1,000. The document shows Boeing also garnered the highest ranking of "excellent" for technical approach and program management, compared with "very good" rankings for SpaceX. '

"Yeah, the director's really high on SpaceX lately, but he also has history with his old pals at Boeing, so how much do I put down here on this questionnaire for 'technical maturity'. Hmm."