Lockheed Martin Contract To Build Orion Space Project Raises Some Questions

Boeing and Northrop Gruman had traditionally built America's space vehicles until last week when Lockheed Martin was surprisingly granted the multibillion dollar contract. While it can be argued that the safety problems with the Space Shuttle program may have soured both NASA and the public on the traditional builders of America's space vehicles, still there are great questions on why exactly Lockheed with no real experience in space vehicle business was awarded this huge contract.

Part of the answer may be in the fact that eight members of the Bush Administration are either former Lockheed Martin executives or major stockholders. And the wife of Dick Cheney was also a former director of Lockheed and had a large stock portfolio in this company. Once again new questions similar to the "no bid" contract that the Pentagon awarded Halliburton for Iraqi reconstruction when Dick Cheney had been the former CEO of this company are raised.

More than any American government in history, the Bush administration has been like a sort of business concern oligarchy that decides issues based on benefits to these represented corporations. Many of the companies represented in the Bush Administration by former executives or major stockholders have seen massive government contracts come their way since the Iraq War. Now Lockheed gains a huge questionable contract over the far more likely contractors of Boeing or Northrop Gruman. While no wrongdoing has been proven, once again the appearance is not very good.