Pentagon Approves Military Industry Merger Of Death Rocket Biz

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Pentagon said to OK rocket-launch joint venture

Sat Jan 7, 2006 9:55 PM ET
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-01-08T025416Z_01_YUE810404_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ARMS-BOEING-LOCKHEED-DC.XML

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department has conditionally approved a controversial plan that would let Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) -- its top suppliers -- merge their struggling government-rocket launch ventures, a well-placed industry consultant said on Saturday.

>>>> . . .the deal was tentatively approved by Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, after a December 16 meeting with Ronald Sega, the Air Force undersecretary who is the Pentagon's executive agent for space.

Lockheed and Boeing, fierce rivals for rocket launches, agreed in May 2005 to create a 50-50 venture that would combine the production, engineering, test and launch operations for U.S. government launches of Boeing Delta and Lockheed Atlas rockets, subject to government approval.

They said at the time that the merger would save the government $100 million to $150 million annually and projected it would have closed by the end of last year.

To be known as the United Launch Alliance, the venture would end a drawn-out legal battle over the theft of internal Lockheed rocket documents that allegedly helped Boeing win rocket-launch work in the 1990s.

In order to replace weapons used in Afghanistan, and in concert with the military conflict in Iraq, most U.S. weapons makers have increased production. Bombs are big business again and the Bush administration has opened the candy store, exporting death, conquest, and perpetual war.

Since 1992, the United States has exported more than $142 billion worth of weaponry around the world. North America accounts for more than 65% of the world's arms exports. Of the 43 countries with over $500 million in arms imports, 23 obtained 2/3 or more from the U.S. http://www.cdi.org/document/search/displaydoc.cfm?DocumentID=216&StartRow=1&ListRows=10

With the new money appropriated for homeland defense ($38 billion for FY 2003), virtually all of the big defense contractors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon have started hawking their products for use in domestic security.

With a share of 24% of U.S. arms exports, Lockheed-Martin is the world's largest arms exporting company. Lockheed leads the pack of defense contractors who do business with the U.S. with valuable Pentagon contracts worth a total of nearly $30 billion and an advertised $70 billion backlog. http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html

Lockheed has 125,000 employees in the United States and overseas with 939 facilities in 457 cities and 45 states throughout the U.S.; internationally, with business locations in 56 nations and territories.

Lockheed leads the defense industry in lobbying expenditures. Lockheed Martin made over $10.6 million in campaign contributions to candidates and party committees from 1990 to 2000, including $3.4 million in donations in the run-up to the year 2000 elections. http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/051603.html

The company actively lobbies for the need to retain substantial numbers of existing nuclear weapons while developing new ones. Lockheed Martin receives more than $1 billion per year from the Department of Energy - to operate the Sandia National Laboratories (involved in the design and production of nuclear warheads) and help run the Nevada Test Site for "sub-critical testing" of new nuclear weapons designs.

The ex-Lockheed Martin employees with the most direct connections to nuclear and missile defense policy are:

*Former chief operating officer Peter B. Teets, who is now Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a post that includes making decisions on the acquisition of everything from reconnaissance satellites to space-based elements of missile defense.

*And, Everet Beckner, who served as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's division that helped run the United Kingdom's Atomic Weapons Establishment. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/uk/uk-usa.htm

Beckner is now Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration 85, charged with oversight of maintenance, development, and production of nuclear warheads.

In their new positions, both Teets and Beckner are well-positioned to make decisions on procurement and research programs that will directly or indirectly benefit their former employer (Lockheed),which has major portfolios in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and military space systems.

-James G. Roche, Secretary of the Air Force is a former president of Northrop-Grumman, a subsidiary of Lockheed.

-Stephen Hadley, Condi Rice's former deputy and our new national security advisor, was a partner in Shea & Gardner, the Washington law firm representing Lockheed Martin.

- Gordon England, Secretary of the Navy, was a General Dynamics contractor and a former president of Lockheed.

-Michael Jackson, Deputy Secretary of Transportation is the former Vice President, Former CEO of Lockheed Information and Management Services and a shareholder.

-Dov Zakheim - Under Secretary for Comptroller of Defense was a paid advisory board member of Northrup-Grumman.

-Nelson F. Gibbs, Air Force; Assistant Secretary for Installations, Environment and Logistics is a former corporate comptroller for Northrop-Grumman.

-I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs was a Northrup-Grumman consultant.

The Arms Trade Resource Center, reported that 80% of Lockheed's business is with the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. It is also the largest provider of information technology services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. government. Such business has grown substantially during the Bush tenure, especially in fiscal year 2002 as plans for war were formulated. http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/links.html

The ATRC report calculates that Lockheed was awarded $17 billion in defense contracts in 2002, up from $14.7 billion in 2001. First quarter sales for 2003 were $7.1 billion, an 18% increase from the corresponding quarter in 2002.

The Pentagon recently engineered the largest defense contract in U.S. military history, a potential $250 billion deal that called for the construction of approximately 6000 Joint Strike Fighter combat planes.

On October 26, Air Force Secretary and former Northrup president James G. Roche, awarded the JSF contract to Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman. The only other competitor was Boeing. The order which stretches over 40 years, calls for the development and manufacturing of 3000 fighters to be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines. http://www.lmaeronautics.com/products/combat_air/x-35

Navy secretary Gordon England served as president of Lockheed's Fort Worth division, which will build the fighter planes. The JSF contract also includes an a similar number of planes to be sold abroad to countries like Turkey, Israel, and Canada.

The federal government last month accused Northrop of fraud in the handling of multimillion-dollar defense contracts, including parts for the B-2 stealth bomber, with radar and avionics components manufactured by the company's Electronic Systems and Services.

In a written statement, Northrop said the case had already been investigated by the U.S. attorney's office from 1989 to 1992, resulting in a decision not to prosecute. The company said that the accusations stemmed from "disgruntled former employees" and that it's confident it will prevail at trial."

The controversies have not deterred Lockheed or Northrup from a continued close relationship with congressional appropriators.

In March, Lockheed received a $4 billion multi-year contract with the U.S. Air Force and the Marine Corps for the acquisition of C-130J Super Hercules Aircraft, to deliver the additional planes (the two departments combined already own 41) from 2003 to 2008. In September, Lockheed was awarded a $40 million contract to develop a high altitude airship for missile defense. http://militaryjets.20m.com/custom4.html

One of Lockheed's chairmen Vance Coffman said that his company would "honor the trust shown by the Pentagon."

However, these corporations simply cannot be trusted to keep their word or their commitments over the length of these multibillion, multi-year contracts which are awarded and maintained with responsibility for oversight falling into the hands of several successive administrations and legislatures.

Ronald Sugar, the new head of Northrup-Grumman, at a recent conservative policy forum on the defense industry remarked, that he expects the government to be responsible for a financially stable military industry.

"Time is risk, . . . the defense industry needs steady, predictable growth," he said.

Pentagon senior defense consultant Richard Perle, who also spoke at the conference, opined that, "A profitable defense industry keeps America strong." Profits have been pretty darn good; CEO pay, however, has been even better. http://www.c-span.org/Search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=American+Institute+of+Aeronautics

According to the study by United for a Fair Economy, More Bucks for the Bang: ", the median CEO salary at the 37 largest publicly traded defense contractors rose 79% between 2001 and 2002 whereas overall CEO salary increased only 6%. In 2002, defense industry CEOs earned an average of $5.4 million - or 577 times as much as a private in Iraq - while other U.S. CEOs, on average, earned "only" $3.7 million."

Boeing had the upper hand in influencing the purchase of Air Force goodies during the first quarter of the Bush I presidency. Boeing was probably best known in the past for making commercial jet airplanes. These days 40% its annual revenue is generated from the sale of military aircraft, missiles, lasers, guidance systems, and the like.

The Air Force had suspended three Boeing units from government satellite launch contracts for obtaining over 25,000 documents from rival Lockheed during bidding for a rocket deal, valued at nearly $2 billion, leaving the lion's share of the future rocket business to Lockheed.

However, months later, the Air Force granted Boeing Co. an exception to U.S. government sanctions to award it a contract for one more Delta IV rocket to launch a spy satellite into space in 2005. Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets (former Lockheed president) in announcing the exception, claimed that he had not completely removed Boeing from suspension from rocket launches. http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2003/09/30/rtr1095664.html

The Air force had "punished" Boeing by taking a handful of the company's unlawfully obtained contracts and giving them to Lockheed. But Lockheed does not have clean hands in the industry misuse of our nation's faith and funds. The corporation has been disciplined over 30 times for violations ranging from overcharges, to failed and faked tests, to improper transfers of sensitive technology.

At INEEL, the Idaho Nuclear Engineering and Environmental Lab, Lockheed Martin's Idaho Technologies Company paid a $220,000 penalty to cover problems with nuclear waste storage containers and other violations that took place from 1995 to 1998.
http://www.inel.gov/
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/ens47.htm

Lockheed pleaded guilty in 1999 to paying a $1 million bribe to an Egyptian legislator in connection with the sale of 3 C-130 transport aircraft to Egypt for $79 million in 1995. For that crime, Lockheed was fined $24.8 million. (DEFENSE DAILY Monday January 30, 1995)

In 2000, Lockheed was fined $13 million for passing secret satellite technology to China. 101 The state department cited an instance where technicians were illegally sent to visit a rocket manufacturing facility in China.

The U.S. will reportedly purchase 80 percent of the magnets used in JDAMs from China. The U.S. government recently charged that around the same time as the JDAM magnet deal, the Lockheed Martin aerospace company gave sensitive rocket technology to China.

In a letter to Lockheed, the State Department listed 30 violations of arms export regulations relating to help given to Chinese satellite launchers and rocket development organizations. The letter, addressed to Lockheed Vice President Richard Kirkland, alleged that the company violated a ban on providing technical assistance that would improve China's space launch vehicles.

One of the State Department's complaints was that the company illegally gave its Chinese partners a scientific assessment of a Chinese-made satellite motor. Four of the charges related to an alleged visit by Lockheed officials in January 1994 to Hohhot, China, for test firings of motors for use in launching a communications satellite, and for discussions with officials of the Chinese company involved in carrying out the project.

That should have been enough to squash credibility of Lockheed and that should have been the end of America's association with the treasonous double-traders. But the hunger to be just like the bully boys of the Eastern Bloc kept the Pentagon from cutting ties. Lockheed would merely change managers, CEOs, dirty sheep's clothing; merge.

Recently, Lockheed Martin paid the U.S. government $37.9 million to settle accusations that it inflated the cost of contracts for the U.S. Air Force, according to the Justice Department. http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/August/03_civ_475.htm

The government also accused Lockheed Martin of purposely inflating a contract proposal for a foreign military sales contract under the Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) program. The U.S. government had hoped to sell the equipment to Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Bahrain as a means of offsetting a cost overrun on another Air Force contract. Oops!

In announcing the $38 million settlement, Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler warned that Lockheed should be an example to other companies that try to overcharge government agencies.

Some example! The company reports that 80% of its business is with the defense and federal government. The paltry fine is a drop in the bucket compared to the value of the company's existing and future contracts with the Pentagon, giving them immunity from government penalties for abuse, as long as we keep them on the dole.

This industry is unchecked and out of control. Instead of turning these new programs down, we increase the buy. And when there is abuse, the corporate defenders in the Pentagon shuffle the contracts. Short-funded in appropriations? Merge, sell off shares and wait it out in a government office to better effect the revival of the military industry's rejected projects.

According to the Center For Responsive Politics, Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Research and Development, and the main force behind Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the Military in Space accepted $170,000 in campaign contributions during the same time period the same corporations were either under federal indictment or were under investigation for shipping military secrets to China. http://www.opensecrets.org/1998os/indus/N00001535.htm

Weldon's contributors included Lockheed Martin and Loral subsidiary United Space Alliance -- $460,000 in 1998, McDonnell-Douglas parent company Boeing -- $340,000 in 1997 and $400,000 in 1998, and Lockheed Defense Systems (combat vehicles) and Armament Systems (gun systems) parent company General Dynamics -- $600,000 in 1997 and $440,000 in 1998.

Congressional contributors such as Hughes, Raytheon, TRW, Madison Research, Texas Instruments, Teledyne, Northrop-Grumman and Rockwell all have ongoing co-mingled defense and missile projects that requires them to work together on a contractor/subcontractor basis to develop their military projects.

There is no question that in this incestuous weapons production pyramid, the shareholder's bottom line dictates the amount of support and funding an individual project would receive, especially when so many of the principles in and out of government have large amounts of money and prestige invested in the success of these weapon's deals.

The U.S. Navy awarded an $812.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin in October 2003 for the continued development of the Missile Defense Agency's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) capability which would provide surveillance and tracking of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Peter Teets, undersecretary of defense, and former Lockheed president, is a major promoter of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the Military in Space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the U.S. does not thoroughly "dominate all aspects of space."

"Clearly, space is the high ground, and we need to capture that high ground and then exploit it," said the former chief executive of the aerospace contractor. http://fas.org/spp/military/

In response to the call from some in the Clinton-era's Republican Congress for the rapid acceleration of national missile defense development, "leading to deployment of a defense system as soon as possible," the United Missile Defense Company (UMDC) was formed in 1997 as a joint venture; equally owned by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW. http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP181

In fiscal years 1996 through 1998, the Republican congress authorized and appropriated a total of $1,174 million more for missile defense than President Clinton's budget requested for those years. Despite President Clinton's opposition, a multimillion dollar contract was signed in 1998 for a "Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator" with Lockheed Martin, TRW, and Boeing as the contractors. http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

On the 25th of April 1997 the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization announced that two contracts for the concept definition study phase of the National Missile Defense (NMD) Lead Systems Integrator were awarded to United Missile Defense Company, Bethesda, MD, and Boeing North American Inc., Downey, CA. http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2002/b03072002_bt109-02.html

According to a 1997 U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command news release, the then- commanding general of the Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Hartzog, and the then- commander of the SSDC, Lieut. General Anderson signed a memorandum of agreement to recognize SSDC as the Army's specified proponent for space and missile defense. http://fas.org/spp/military/commission/report.htm

The MOA also permitted SSDC to establish the Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab.

The Space and Strategic Defense Command was set up as the Army's specified proponent for space and national missile defense and an "integrator" for theater missile defense issues - recognized by the military establishment as a "one stop shop". The Space Battle Lab is intended to develop "warfighting concepts, focus military science and technology research, conduct warfighting experiments, and support exercises and training activities, all focused on space and missile defense."

Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Northrop Grumman Space Technology ended up with the contract for the Space Battle Lab.

Today the Lockheed Space Systems website describes the corporation's ambitions in "space-based telecommunications; remote-sensing; missile systems; and the capability to integrate these complex elements into a total "system of systems," as an enterprise built by heritage aerospace companies including Lockheed, Martin Marietta, RCA, GE and Loral. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is one of the major operating units of the Lockheed Corporation. It designs, develops, tests, manufactures and operates a variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil, and commercial customers.

Chief products include space launch and ground systems, remote sensing and communications satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space observatories and spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles and missile defense systems. Everything for the next-generation of meddling in space. Everything for a down-on-his-luck weapon's manufacturer to get his blood money-grubbing career back on track.

Specific defense projects for the Lockheed Space Battle Lab:
-Global Positioning System IIR (GPS).
-Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
-Space Based Infrared System (Space-Based Lasers)
-International Space Station
-Theater High-Altitude Area Defense
-Airborne Laser
-Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile: (UK FBM). The D5, built by LM Space & Strategic Missiles, is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense's strategic nuclear fleet.

Lockheed Space & Strategic Missiles, has to date, built and orbited more than 875 spacecraft for military, civil government and international commercial markets.

It should be remembered that there is no pot of money sitting around unneeded to dip into for these space projects. No starry-eyed mission to the moons of Pluto can be sustained without the military bonanza of nervous cash; and you can't easily turn this industry off once you've given them the money and licence to fiddle.

In an article for the Washington Monthly in the summer of 2000, Stephen Hadley cited a 1999 National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that "Iraq could test a North Korean-type ICBM that could deliver a several hundred-kilogram payload to the United States in the last half of the next decade (calendar year 2000) depending on the level of foreign assistance." http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1999_09-10/nieso99.asp

It has been noted by some that only North Korea possesses missiles that could reach any part of the U.S., and that missile (the Taepo-Dong 2) is currently untested. But Hadley concluded that, " Only against ballistic missiles does the United States remain vulnerable through continued adherence to the ABM Treaty.

Also that , interim "quick fixes" offering even the most limited capability against the ballistic missile threat would provide a deterrent to countries now seeking these weapons; the so-called "scarecrow defense." In this way, Hadley argued, the United States would have an "emergency deployment option" in case of crisis. The way around amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty 123 would be to declare the system "temporary". Anything to get the industry in the Pentagon chow line. Its clear that no matter what the obstacles or objections, Hadley would insist that the constructs of a new missile defense regime were essential to the nation's defense.

A senior U.S. military officer warned in October of this year that, "Space may become a war zone in the not-too-distant future," in an apparent reaction to China becoming the third country besides the U.S. and Russia to put a man in space.

"In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, Deputy Commander, United States Northern Command, and Vice Commander, U.S. Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command, said at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans. http://www.alternet.org/story/17329/

"Our military forces depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be," he said. Anderson has served on the Army staff in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Acquisition in the Pentagon as a space acquisitions and appropriations warrior.

"They can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems," said Anderson, who was formerly with the U.S. Space Command. "Now how they do that and who that's going to be I can't tell you in this audience," he warned ominously.

In a Reuters article published in the same month as Anderson's remarks, Rich Haver, former special assistant for intelligence to Donald Rumsfeld, said he expected battles in space within the next two decades.

"I believe space is the place we will fight in the next 20 years," said Haver, now vice president for intelligence strategy at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. (sincere, concerned look on his face as he speaks)

"There are executive orders that say we don't want to do that," Haver explained. "There's been a long-standing U.S. policy to try to keep space a peaceful place, but ... we have in space assets absolutely essential to the conduct of our military operations (and our portfolios), absolutely essential to our national security. They have been there for many years," he asserted.

"When the true history of the Cold War is written and all the classified items are finally unclassified, I believe that historians will note that it was in space that a significant degree of this country's ability to win the Cold War was embedded," Haver extolled.

All of this advocacy contradicts a previous report by the CIA, which stated that it was not necessary to rapidly deploy a missile defense shield. The threat from North Korea is their main justification for a missile defense system. NK's Taepo-dong 1 missile can only carry a 1,000-kilogram nuclear bomb for about 2,500 kilometers, short of U.S. territory. It could also carry lighter biological or chemical weapons for 4,100 kilometers, but it would still fall about 400 kilometers short of Alaska and the Hawaii islands.

Similarity, the Taepo-dong 2 missile, when fully operational, is only expected to barely reach Alaska.

The General Accounting Office cautioned in a 40-page report released in Sept. 2003, that the Bush administration's push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads. The GAO report said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task.

The GAO report faults the stepped-up schedule proposed by President Bush for premature integration. "As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system". Despite the report, the Defense Department has budgeted approximately $10 billion a year over the next five years to fund the missile defense program, and appropriators approved $9.1billion to be spent next year on the system.

The Pentagon's 2004 budget request included $8.5 billion for unclassified space programs, an increase of about $600 million more than 2003, including funding increases for work on an advanced network of laser-based communications satellites. The request also includes $274 million for a space-based radar system which the U.S. Air Force hopes to launch in 2012 to track moving ground targets at all times regardless of weather conditions. That marked a sharp rise from $48 million in 2003. http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp?id=news/jsf06253.xml

Teets had said that winning approval to increase funding for the radar program would be "one of the real tests" for future space programs. Defense officials plan to spend about $4.4 billion in the next five years on the program, which will provide data to both military and intelligence agencies.

There seems to be no limit to aerospace ambitions. The administration is pushing ahead with the expansion of the military space program, despite the limitations of the nation's weak economy and the adoption of many other costly ‘priorities' for the armed forces.

The Pentagon just can't seem to keep our own military contractors from proliferating their sensitive technology around the globe. They are pitting nation against nation in a death race as they steadily increase our military corporation- compromised arsenal. And then they turn around and destroy the weapons again in phony conflicts. They lord over our defense' dollars in our government houses and shepherd the money into some death merchant's bank account. Where's the security?

Of course, there exists the possibility that President Bush actually assembled the Pentagon's recent pack of aerospace executives to run his foreign policy in his own anticipation of a credible 'space threat', to deter a future assault on our nation's security.

What foresight he must have had from his Texas ranch. What of it, if executives and shareholders in the space industry happen to rape of our treasury to fulfill their own hunger to dominate military and commercial space?



source:mebook

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3. ???? I'm confused...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department has conditionally approved a controversial plan that would let Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) -- its top suppliers -- merge their struggling government-rocket launch ventures, a well-placed industry consultant said on Saturday.

>>>> . . .the deal was tentatively approved by Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, after a December 16 meeting with Ronald Sega, the Air Force undersecretary who is the Pentagon's executive agent for space.

Lockheed and Boeing, fierce rivals for rocket launches, agreed in May 2005 to create a 50-50 venture that would combine the production, engineering, test and launch operations for U.S. government launches of Boeing Delta and Lockheed Atlas rockets, subject to government approval.

They said at the time that the merger would save the government $100 million to $150 million annually and projected it would have closed by the end of last year.

To be known as the United Launch Alliance, the venture would end a drawn-out legal battle over the theft of internal Lockheed rocket documents that allegedly helped Boeing win rocket-launch work in the 1990s.

I'm not sure I understand the OP. The story is talking about the companies' space launch businesses. The Delta and Atlas are the types of rockets that launch space probes, Mars rovers, communications satellites, GPS sats, and stuff. Not missiles.

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4. I was pretty clear about what I object to about Lockheed and the rest

No, I'm no supporter of space exploration by these same groups who use our money for weapons of destruction. Their military missions are entwined, covered by, the seemingly benign missions they dream up. Didn't the deadly Trident's design come from the early Atlas? What about the AtlasF?

What about the Ballistic Missile Defense project? Isn't Lockheed responsible, along with Boeing, for their booster rocket production?

from Slate:

". . . look at what a missile-defense system would involve. Broadly speaking, it would be a meshing of six separate operations: 1) an early warning radar, which would detect a missile launch; 2) satellite-based sensors that would distinguish missiles from deliberate decoys and random space clutter; 3) X-band radar that would track the missiles and control the firing of "kill vehicles" (anti-missile missiles that would shoot down enemy missiles); 4) the kill vehicles themselves; 5) booster rockets to launch the kill vehicles; and 6) the automated command-control-communications network that would connect all the above into a seamless system.
http://www.slate.com/id/2097087

All of these missions that the Bush military industrial warriors use to entice us into dumping money into space programs they dream up don't pass the smell test in the face of their hunger for a missile defense program and space based lasers to dominate military and commercial space. PNAC 101. Any program that they approve funding for has to have a military component. The companies they are trying to bolster are their military buddies, their benefactors.

In the late 1950's, Freeman Dyson, physicist, educator, and author, joined the Orion Project research team. The project's participants proposed exploding atomic bombs at regular intervals at very short distances behind a specially designed space ship in order to propel it to the Moon and other planets in the Solar System far more quickly and cheaply than with chemical-fuel rockets. http://www.angelfire.com/stars2/projectorion/

The motto for Orion was, 'Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970'; hauntingly reminiscent of the administration's line about its Project Prometheus exploring Mars and Europa's moons.

Orion ran out of money and needed the government's help. The military agreed to take up the project, but only on the condition that it adapt itself to a military purpose. The project was later abandoned because of uncertainty about the safety and efficacy of nuclear energy, and the high cost of the speculative program. Also, because the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 outlawed it.

"Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich," Dyson said as he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion 2000. Dyson once commented that, "Project Orion is a monument to those who once believed, or still believe, in turning the power of these weapons into something else."