[FlameOn]

Very good write-up on why Orbital Sciences got the contract and why the constant stream of bad recycled parts are used for launches. Basically it amounts to US lobby money in politics and campaign contributions to key senators responsible for the space program. Also why SpaceX got hobbled the way it did.

To guarantee its sweet and automatic profits, the space military industrial complex of today manipulates Senate and the Congress. When they produce a product, they place bits and pieces of the manufacturing process in as many states as possible. The more states, the more congressmen and senators will back the projects of the space military industrial complex in order to “save jobs.”

One project, the F-35 fighter, provides jobs in an astounding 45 states. Senators and Congressmen defend a project like that whether it is needed or not. Whether it is capable or not. And whether it is high quality or not.
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The space military industrial complex’s Senatorial and Congressional allies spotted a poacher on their turf in SpaceX. They sharpened their knives and tried everything in their power to hobble Musk’s company. For example, in June 2014 three Congressmen–Mike Coffman, Cory Gardner and Mo Brooks—demanded that NASA’s head, Charles Bolden, submit SpaceX to a slanted scrutiny that would give a false impression that SpaceX vehicles are unsafe.

Coffman, Gardner and Brooks portrayed SpaceX as a dangerous, unreliable failure. In a letter to NASA head Charles Bolden, they claimed that SpaceX had had “an epidemic of anomalies.” The list of “anomalies,” they said, included “multiple helium leaks, loss of capsule control, multiple thruster issues, avionics issues, capsule contamination issues, and three consecutive seawater intrusions on ISS Cargo Resupply Service (CRS) missions.”

These “anomalies,” they claimed, “have occurred during nearly every phase of nearly every launch on SpaceX vehicles the agency has funded.” The three politicians insisted that SpaceX “anomalies” “pose a high risk that would inevitably result in costly and preventable failures.”

Since taxpayer money pays for some of SpaceX’s launches, the Congressmen demanded “full disclosure and accountability to the American taxpayer.” They ordered “that NASA publicly release all anomalies and mishap information, un-redacted so that Congress can gain a better understanding of what has occurred and ensure full transparency.”

In other words, the space military industrial complex cabal wanted to tangle SpaceX in the sort of red tape that makes space military industrial complex projects so expensive.

But that’s not all. Elon Musk had developed new rocket engines with new capabilities. Engines that are safer and cost far less than any that have come before them. But to fatten their profit, companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the company they jointly co-own, United Launch Alliance, stopped developing new engines.

Instead, like Orbital Sciences, they bought old pre-1989 rocket engines from the Russians and refurbished them. It was an antique Russian rocket engine of this kind that apparently did in the Antares over Wallops Island.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/who-blew-up-the-rocket