I think people understand this wrong. The problem with Shuttle was not that they had multiple masters. The problem was that they were not able to experiment and build multiple versions. Many bad choices were already made by the time DoD came in.
People always act as if everything is only because of a few requirements from DoD, but this is just not correct.
The fundamental problem was that they had limited budget and they wanted to build something that could achieve almost absurd spec without building any intermediate steps.
Spreading it around districts was also not really a huge issue because it was such a new program and you had contractors all over the US already, so it was actually sensible. The problem is just that even today they can't change it because they locked it in back then.
People always act as if everything is only because of a few requirements from DoD, but this is just not correct.
The fundamental problem was that they had limited budget and they wanted to build something that could achieve almost absurd spec without building any intermediate steps.
Spreading it around districts was also not really a huge issue because it was such a new program and you had contractors all over the US already, so it was actually sensible. The problem is just that even today they can't change it because they locked it in back then.
Can you elaborate on this point?