Andy Pasztor is a former journalist with ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. He is the author of the 1995 book ''When the Pentagon was for Sale: Inside America's Biggest Defense Scandal''. Pasztor also appeared in the 2022 documentary film '' Downfall: The Case Against Boeing'', which examined

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...

's role in two fatal crashes of the

Boeing 737 MAX The Boeing 737 MAX is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, a narrow-body airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), a division of American company Boeing. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) and competes with ...

Lion Air Flight 610 Lion Air Flight 610 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport, Jakarta to Depati Amir Airport, Pangkal Pinang in Indonesia. On 29 October 2018, the Boeing 737 MAX operating the route crashed into th ...

and

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. On 10 March 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft ...

Journalism controversies

Burt Rutan

On February 24, 2010, Andy Pasztor wrote an article titled "Space Pioneer

Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...

Blasts New NASA Plan," claiming that Burt Rutan had written a letter to Congress sharply criticizing President Obama's plans to turn over portions of its human spaceflight program to commercial providers. A couple days later Burt Rutan released a statement saying that "the WSJ chose to cherry-pick and misquote my comments to Cong Wolf."

SpaceX

Immediately following SpaceX's inaugural launch of the

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

rocket, Andy Pasztor wrote in a ''Wall Street Journal'' article titled "SpaceX Illustrates Privatization Risk" on June 7, 2010, alleging that SpaceX claimed it would require $1 billion to build a passenger launch escape system for its rocket, and that the company would likely require future assistance from US taxpayers. When asked about this, SpaceX CEO

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

responded saying:

Andy Pasztor’s article in the Journal was, I’m sorry to say, rife with errors. He was off by a factor of ten on what it would cost SpaceX to develop a launch escape system. Also, under no circumstances would SpaceX be seeking a financing round from the taxpayers. That doesn’t make any sense."

SpaceX and other launch contractors have received substantial money from U.S. taxpayers in the form of NASA contracts. In May 2011 a Government Accountability Office report titled "Commercial Launch Vehicles: NASA Taking Measures to Manage Delays and Risks" stated that starting in November 2011 SpaceX had, in addition to a contract of $278 million, been awarded $118 million for additional Commercial Orbital Transportation Services ("COTS") risk reduction milestones, bringing the company's total cargo-only contract to $396 million for 12 ISS resupply missions. In April 2011, SpaceX was awarded $75 million (versus Pasztor's estimate of a billion dollars for the passenger launch escape system alone) as a participant in NASA's CCDev2. In August 2012, NASA announced that, as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Integration Capability program, SpaceX won a $440 million contract.NASA's Commercial Crew Program Progressing for Future of U.S. Human Spacefligh

/ref>

Awards

* 2007 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Writing for "A Spotlight on Boeing's Legal and Ethical Scandals"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pasztor, Andy Living people Gerald Loeb Award winners for Deadline and Beat Reporting Year of birth missing (living people)