Is the federal government prepared to hand Jeff Bezos, the third-richest man in the world, millions of our taxpayer dollars again?
Unfortunately, it sure seems that way.
Bezos knows when it comes to taxpayer subsidies, the sky is the limit, and with the help of President Joe Biden’s Space Force, his rocket company Blue Origin appears ready to blast off.
Biden’s Space Force recently changed the longstanding selection criteria the government has used to decide who is (and isn’t) qualified to conduct national security launches. And it appears to have done so to ensure more of our hard-earned dollars orbit straight into the $116 billion-dollar man’s pockets.
Before the Biden administration changed the rules, federal law mandated the government only select companies with the proven ability to launch things into space by meeting certain “reference orbits.” But now, Biden’s Space Force has created a new section in the program that will allow Bezos — who has out-of-this-world space dreams but no completed, functioning rocket to transition them into reality — to win government contracts anyway.
Ars Technica reported that the Biden administration only made this rule change for “risk tolerant” missions.” So, “if the rocket blows up and the satellite is lost, it will not have a hugely adverse effect on the military’s operations.” But that still raises the question: why is the government so willing to blow up taxpayer money this carelessly when it already has so many proven contractors available?