Spacex success has made enemies of the allies of big government contractors

[Slate - Phil Plait] SpaceX, as you may know, is making good on its promise to make access to space cheaper and more reliable. Their Falcon 9 rocket is putting payloads into orbit for less money than the big government contractors charge.

As one might expect, government officials who have such contractors in their own districts and states are unhappy with this. And apparently some are willing to smear SpaceX as retribution.

Three House members—Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)—have sent a memo to NASA demanding that the agency investigate what they call “an epidemic of anomalies” with SpaceX missions.

The congressmen say that SpaceX should be accountable to the American taxpayer.

Space News reported taht NASA didn’t actually pay for the development of the Falcon 9; Elon Musk did.

Development of Falcon 9 and Dragon was supported, but not exclusively funded, by NASA through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, using Space Act Agreements versus conventional contracts. SpaceX supplemented the NASA funding with its own; SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has said on a number of occasions that the company used no NASA funding for development of the Falcon 9.

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