Yes; much of the SLS requirements were forced by a certain bloc of congress who, since the 1970's have been directing pork-barrel $ at a few contractors' busine

Yes; much of the SLS requirements were forced by a certain bloc of congress who, since the 1970's have been directing pork-barrel $ at a few contractors' business. (in particular, Lockheed's Michaud facility in Louisiana, and Thiokol/ATK..now OrbitalATK, in the case of the solid rocket fuel). A lot of the original STS requirements were driven by this congressional delegation. Good riddance to this form of "engineering". That said: I'm not super bullish on the outcome of Blue Origin's efforts. The have not impressed me. SpaceX has; very much. And I do believe that Lockheed, Boeing, and even OrbitalATK will be very important players in the future. They're all continuing to do great work, but the government's got to start spending their money much smarter than they had been. (And perhaps the worst example was the cancellation of the X-33 Program).