> Even if Blue Origin is behind SpaceX, it's still good to have a couple irons in the fire pushing things. It is a sort of whataboutism - in this case, just be

> Even if Blue Origin is behind SpaceX, it's still good to have a couple irons in the fire pushing things. It is a sort of whataboutism - in this case, just because Blue Origin is a space company funded by a rich person, the actions should be the same. Yes, Blue Origin is similar to SpaceX. There are, however, both qualitative and quantitative differences, and both of those may justify different results when viewed by a third party. Does Blue Origin produces good results? Well. Blue Origin was created before SpaceX, but many would say the results of Blue Origin are more modest. So NASA may decide that funding Blue Origin doesn't justify added expenses. Does Blue Origin need money? It could be funny, but Jeff Bezos can well fund the company - he even promised giving them a billion a year. That kind of funding is significantly different from, for example, NASA's help to SpaceX right after forth Falcon-1 flight. So NASA's money may not go as long in the case of Blue Origin. There are more modest companies where NASA help would likely achieve more. I'd name Sierra Nevada Company with Dream Chaser and Master Space Systems with their landers. Big aggregations of airspace behemoths, themselves created by merging multiple airspace companies and eliminating competition don't often produce results with reasonable price tags.