re: #9 Weet

Everything Elon Musk does impresses me.

“Our Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles are truly made in America,” he said. “This stands in stark contrast to the United Launch Alliance’s most frequently flown vehicle, the Atlas V.”

That rocket uses a Russian engine, Musk said, and half the airframe is built abroad.

“Supply of the main engine depends on President Putin’s permission,” he said.

Billionaire Musk makes push to launch military satellites

Aside: I do wonder why he’s wearing lipstick in the photo,

Ignore the continuous drumbeat of right-wing propaganda against Musk and the innovators at SpaceX. The military launch monopoly, ULA, needs these contracts because it has priced itself out of the commercial launch market. ULA is robbing the taxpayers blind, with charges that are 5-6 times as high as what Musk’s SpaceX charges its commercial clients. These crooks are all for free enterprise, except when they can make an obscene profit from a Congressionally sanctified monopoly and restraint of trade.
The ULA guy’s arguments are gibberish. He is really telling the Congress whores that they can share in the loot if they continue the monopoly.
SpaceX will continue to profit from its commercial and NASA contracts in any case, and will increasingly expose the legacy contractors for the crooks and profiteers they are.