GAO occasionally reviews contracting decisions by agencies of the federal government, and their reports provide some insights into how these agencies make their decisions (and sometimes how they make mistakes).
On January 5, 2015, the GAO released a statement about its review of NASA's decision to award Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Contracts to Boeing and SpaceX. As usual, the GAO did not rule on the merits of the firms' proposals; it limited itself to reviewing the decision process. In this case, it "reviewed the conclusions reached by NASA to determine if they were
reasonable, and consistent with the evaluation approach NASA set out in
its solicitation. " GAO concluded that they were. (Unfortunately, the details of the decision are not yet available.)
