Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.
Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.
Musk, citing an article by the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center, suggested Thursday night on Twitter that the Pentagon inspector general should investigate the actions of former Air Force civilian Roger “Scott” Correll. Earlier this year, Correll retired from his post as the Air Force’s program executive officer for space launch, where he wielded enormous influence in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for 36 rocket launches over the next several years, shooting sensitive national security equipment into space.
The contract went to a company called United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the nation’s two biggest weapons contractors — Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier this month, Correll took a job as vice president of government acquisition and policy with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that supplies the rocket engines used by United Launch Alliance.
Correll’s hiring certainly illustrates the “old boys” network in operation here. Whether there was direct corruption is not clear. Nonetheless, the bulk buy contract is not in the interests of the taxpayer or the Air Force, at least not at the prices announced.
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Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.
Musk, citing an article by the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center, suggested Thursday night on Twitter that the Pentagon inspector general should investigate the actions of former Air Force civilian Roger “Scott” Correll. Earlier this year, Correll retired from his post as the Air Force’s program executive officer for space launch, where he wielded enormous influence in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for 36 rocket launches over the next several years, shooting sensitive national security equipment into space.
The contract went to a company called United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the nation’s two biggest weapons contractors — Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier this month, Correll took a job as vice president of government acquisition and policy with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that supplies the rocket engines used by United Launch Alliance.
Correll’s hiring certainly illustrates the “old boys” network in operation here. Whether there was direct corruption is not clear. Nonetheless, the bulk buy contract is not in the interests of the taxpayer or the Air Force, at least not at the prices announced.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I can see this contract getting canceled due to political pressure alone.
If the guy doesn’t lose his new job and or get investigated for illegal activities.
>.. certainly illustrates the “old boys” network..
Another factor is simply its a small community to hire out of. Execs “do their tour” in gov to help out, then go back and get a real job. Course then everyone kinda has the same assumptions…makes the same errors..
Its not assumptions its fact.
And it should be illegal.
Most engineers and many people who sell a business sign non competition agreements. Meaning that they can not go to work in the same field with a competitor or start a new business in the same field.
All of these government agents involved with government contracts should sign the very same thing. A contract risking their retirements and benefits if they accept a job with a government contractor within 5 years or so or quitting their government job. And since its the public money they play with then criminal charges should be also be possible if the value of their total contracts breaks a certain limit, like a million dollars.
Simple law, simple solution. It would remove one of the rewards that lobbyists dangle out.
>>Course then everyone kinda has the same assumptions…makes the same errors..
> Its not assumptions its fact.
No I mean the same assumptions about designs, organizations, etc.
> And it should be illegal.
By “it” I assume you mean execs or engineers in the field “doing a tour” in gov agencies to help them out. If you make it illegal, then gov would never get any qualified or knowledgeable people. Folks might “do a tour” out of a sense of public service, but they certainly aren’t going to give up their careers for it.
We don’t need quality engineers as you put it.
Government jobs like NASA should disperse money and hire specialists for single specific jobs.
Leave the heavy work like research and design to private companies and universities.
You work for the US government with an idea of retiring from there.
You don’t go to work for the US government like its a temp agency until you get a good enough job offer.
By stopping them from going to work with companies that they had direct contract negotiations with you only stop the possibility of corruption.
They can go to work with any number of other companies or go into other fields. Or they can take a job in the government outside of the field they want a private job in. That way there is no conflict of interest like in this case.
Hiring the government employee who negotiated and approved your companies government contract just looks bad. And in all other professional fields would not be tolerated.
If you hired a lawyer to negotiate a contract with a company and the day after he advises you to sign it he gets hired by that very same company you could take then both to court and have the contract nullified.
Which should be exactly what happens when a company hires someone who negotiated a contract for the government.
> We don’t need quality engineers as you put it.
Then how do you hope to get decent analysis of engineering proposals? That was why back during Apollo NASA made sure it had top folks in every important field, even though none of said scientists and engineers would do science or engineering as NASA personel.
Ah hit send to quick.
>..Government jobs like NASA should disperse money and hire specialists for single specific jobs.
>the heavy work like research and design to private companies and universities. ..
They do. Pretty much always had when possible. They provide specialized facilities at the centers, but their are very few NASA employees doing the work (say 5%) though that raises the problem of what do you do when mandatory contract recompletes come up, and say the whole shuttle operations staff lose the rebid for a newer company proposing to restaff with cheaper folks — naturally none of which have any experience with shuttle operations?
>..You work for the US government with an idea of retiring from there.
> You don’t go to work for the US government like its a temp agency until you get a good enough job offer.
>
> By stopping them from going to work with companies that they had direct contract negotiations with you only stop the possibility of corruption….
And you eliminate the possibility of getting any really experienced person in any of those tasks. Why perminently kill a real career, for real money, to become a civil servant bureaucrat?