There is a common thread in statements made by Elon Musk, CEO and founder of Space X, one of the world's largest private space companies, to the US Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee On Defense, in press releases and in their recently launched lawsuit against the United States Air Force, as well as by the few media outlets and politicians that have discussed the issue. 

   They are not asking if the US should surround the earth in suveillance satellites that can be weaponized in the future, at a cost of billions of dollars to taxpayers. 

  They are also not mentioning that this is a blatant violation of the 2001 United Nations General Assembly Resolution For The Prevention of an arms race in outer space, which states that "The exploration and use of outer space … shall be for peaceful purposes and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. … [The] prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security". 

   All of the discussion is about the unfair advantage given to United Launch Alliance, who have sealed all the contracts related to the militarization of space by the US Air Force with no competitive bidding process whatsoever, costing taxpayers much more and shutting other start-up private space launch companies out the most lucrative contracts possible in their industry. 

  It is quite likely that United Launch Alliance got the contracts the same way many large companies get large contracts, a complex network of carefully chosen and groomed political candidates and executive lobbyists who know if they get elected or appointed to a major decision making position they will have a better career when they leave office because of political alliances built on thinly veiled kickback schemes that involve speaking engagements, fundraisers, consultation and lobbying contracts, etc, as long as they do what's good for the company, even if it's not good for the country. 

This is quite likely since ULA is a joint venture owned by  Boeing and Lockheed Martin, whose success has been built at US taxpayer's expense through these kinds of dealings, especially military related contracts. 

   Don't get me wrong, I feel for Elon Musk and other start up space companies who believed in the principles of free market supply and demand encouraging greater ingenuity to boost efficiency and reduce expense, the notion that contracting public services to private enterprises would get those services delivered more efficiently and cost-effectively by virtue of market competion principles more sacred than god and country in the minds of industrial capitalists at their best and worst. 

   But part of that ideology is that one must always seize an advantage when it comes along, and those same 'market principles' dictate that if United Launch Alliance, or Space X for that matter, finds an opportunity to bribe their way through the system and dominate the market through graft allowing itself to charge much much more than a competetive market would allow, it has to pursue that advantage for it's shareholders, just as large companies that can get away with ignoring environmental laws almost altogetherwhile also ensuring that smaller competitors are held to a much higher standard and fined out of existence for minor violations, which is used in propaganda to give the false pretense that they environmental standards are enforced, and also as propaganda against the environmental movement as being harmful to the economy.

   This ideology of competition for it's own sake as the basis for an economy ensures, within it's own doctrines, that the competition can never be fair. The people who start out with the most to begin with are encouraged by the ideology itself to use that advantage to prevent real competition from happening.

   It is this ideology that has dramatically undermined the US space program. NASA has had it's budget slashed to oblivion in recent years due to 'needed' budget cuts, yet it has ended up costing more, as the US has been doing it's launches through the Russian space program at a much higher cost, due to corruption at various levels in the US government. 

This is the ideology that has brought the world to the point where one country, a country whose economy is based on securing cheap resources from other countries through military force, a country with the world's largest prison population,  wants to surround the world with surveillance satellites that can later be weaponized, and the rest of the world's government's seem to accept this as inevitable and the only organized resistance to the program domestically is from a company whose only problem with it is that they don't get to be the ones who launch it. 

  The political corruption involved has even put the security of the program itself as risk. Because of various pay off schemes in it's international dealings have resulted in a situation where almost every part of the US space program and many private aerospace companies are dependant on Russian technology. 

   One of Space X's selling points is that all of their key components are American made, one of the few tech companies who haven't taken the economically logical step of having them made in a country where they can be done much cheaper, where they can pay starvation level wages and have few health and safety regulations. But they're a small company now. If they had these contracts, they would have to find cheaper ways of doing everything on a larger scale, because the religion of competitive economics demands it, and they would likely convert to third world sweat shops very shortly. 

    These satellites could serve positive, cooperative purposes. They could find missing children and help stop forest fires and assist with environmental clean up. They could help improve the lives of everyone on the planet, if that was their purpose.

    But that's not what these satellites will be used for. They are being launched by corrupt, competetive people who despise the idea of cooperation for universal benefit, they know that claiming humanitarian purpose is a part of marketting acceptance amongst the public, but the idea of cooperation for universal humanitarian benefit is a blasphemy to their entire worldview. 

      Space X is one of the few companies where the scientists and engineers whose genius and dedication go into the work also own the company. Other companies keep their scientists and engineers under-paid compared to the profit made from their ideas, and scientists get stuck in those kinds of contracts because they are not really competitive. The scientists who do most of the creative work are usually motivated by a desire to see if an idea works or to solve a problem for the sake of solving the problem, and the scientific method is designed to be cooperative, every experiment must be repeatable by others, and every breakthrough or new piece of information is interpreted into other breakthroughs and new information being revealed by other scientists who have different pieces of the overall puzzle.

   If that kind of thinking went into our economy and governance, instead of this ridiculous religion of  fake yet brutal competition for it's own sake and free markets that aren't really free and everything arranged for the benefit of the wealthy few, this planet could be a paradise. 

    But with the militarization of space under the control of people whose entire success is rooted in ruthlessness and indoctrinated into a  'moral principle' of persuing any advantage for personal gain at all costs, it could get much much worse than it is now. 

References: 

ELON MUSK'S STATEMENT TO US SENATE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, March 5, 2014. http://www.spacex.com/press/2014/03/05/elon-musks-statement-us-senate-appropriations-subcommittee-defense

Space X Press Release: SPACEX ANNOUNCES COURT ACTION TO OPEN AIR FORCE SPACE LAUNCH MISSIONS TO COMPETITION, April 25, 2014 http://www.spacex.com/press/2014/04/25/spacex-announces-court-action-open-air-force-space-launch-missions-competition

 United Nations, Resolutions Adopted By The General Assembly, January 3, 2001,  Prevention of an arms race in outer space http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/gares/ARES_55_32E.pdf

  Militarization and Weaponization of Outer Space by Anup Shah, 2007. http://www.globalissues.org/article/69/militarization-and-weaponization-of-outer-space

Universe Today, ISS, NASA and US National Security dependent on Russian & Ukrainian Rocketry Amidst Crimean Crisis by Ken Kremer, March 5, 2014 http://www.universetoday.com/110006/iss-nasa-and-us-national-security-dependent-on-russian-ukrainian-rocketry-amidst-crimean-crisis/

Boeing-Built Fighter Jets Could Launch US Military Satellites Into SpaceBy Elizabeth Howell, April 18, 2014 http://www.space.com/25549-boeing-fighter-jets-satellite-launches-darpa.html