As an example, I give you Lockheed’s response to SpaceX — not an attempt to compete on the merits of their vehicles, but getting a shill to spread libelous rumors and unfounded fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Or ULA’s response to the Falcon Heavy — lobbying thoroughly bought bureaucrats to grant them (in the name of national security and military need) a multi-year pork-laden launch contract for an unrealistic number of launches at inflated costs.

Or Orbital Sciences getting a resupply contract for fewer flights, with a less capable vehicle, carrying less cargo — which yet pays much more than the contract awarded to their competitor.

Or the Senate Launch System, an unaffordable pork-barrel jobs program that the engineering geniuses of the US congress forced on NASA — a program which is a shoddily disguised copy of the (rightly discarded as far too expensive based on findings of the impartial Augustine commission) dismal Constellation program.

The race is on. Can the market-driven commercial space companies get established, and create a market strong enough to sustain them, in the face of such entrenched corruption? Can they do it before the bureaucratic ossification extends far enough to doom us to stay on this rock forever? I can only hope, and try to find ways to put my money into the new-space start-ups.

We are now returning to the frontier in true American fashion. Individualistic and capitalist. The first planet I set foot on I’d like to leave a plaque that says “We came for our co-workers and friends to make us all filthy rich.. and have great adventures and a lot of fun while in process.”