If nothing else, they're a stick to beat Boeing/Lockheed and their retarded halfbreed pet ULA over the head until they get their shit together.

Bitch and cry about Spacex all you want, but each individual launch of Vulcan Centaur (if they can ever get it off the ground) will cost more than the entirety of the public funds given to Spacex now for hundreds of launches.

Pork on that scale is worth some grandstanding and self promotion on the part of whoever makes it untenable.

operates at a loss, funded entirely by gov contracts.

Now do Raytheon.

Anyone here ever read David Weber's "Dahak" series?

This will sound a little familiar.