Big Aerospace Reaches For The Stars While Using Smear Tactics

A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities, Ars Technica

"According to the LMG website, the 15-year-old firm "develops and executes public-, Hill-, and agency-facing issue advocacy campaigns that shift the narrative in a changing world." More bluntly, the SourceWatch website calls LMG a "secretive Washington DC public affairs firm" with a history of placing op-eds, and it seeks to mask the op-eds' financial sponsors. Ars could not confirm the ultimate sponsor of the op-eds, but there are some potentially pertinent facts. For one, Boeing is touted on the LMG website as a client, and it is listed as one of LMG's three main "featured narratives" on its homepage. (LMG says, as part of its campaign for a Boeing tanker plane, that it "developed and executed an aggressive 'outside game' campaign working with dozens of major grassroots organizations, labor unions, suppliers and vendors and national security experts to make the case for Boeing's bid. We developed messaging... and helped manage a newly developed social media campaign amplifying our nationwide chorus of genuine American voices supporting Boeing.") Boeing, which is not mentioned in the op-eds, is also the only competitor to SpaceX in the commercial crew program. Could Boeing be the client behind the anti-SpaceX op-eds? A spokesman for Boeing, Jerry Drelling, told Ars, "We have no comment."

Keith's note: This is creepy. What is Boeing up to? As noted above, a firm overtly linked to them is connected to an anti-SpaceX editorial campaign. Boeing has deep pockets when it comes to PR. They have poured a lot of money into a weekly space news letter with Politico. Boeing is also sponsoring a space-related event with Vice President Pence here in Washington, DC later this month. And of course they send lots of money to the overtly pro-SLS organization Coalition for Deep Space Exploration. Meanwhile Boeing has an ongoing social media campaign on Facebook which entices people to sign up for a newsletter - one that as an obscure but lengthy terms of service that reserves the right for Boeing to collect, use, and resell information about people who sign up. They use space as a topic to entice people to sign up but then route you to pages that urge you to support a lobbying effort for a weapon system they want Congress to buy. Again, what is Boeing up to?

- Boeing's Creepy Petition Wants To Track Your Online Activity, earlier post
- Join Boeing's SLS Fan Club So They Can Track Your Activity Online, earlier post
- Boeing's Misleading Anti-SpaceX Pro-SLS Facebook Ad Campaign, earlier post

The op-ed effort exposed by Eric Berger is eerily similar to another stealth smear effort that NASAWatch exposed back in 2016 wherein a DC PR firm (Orange Hat Group) was linked to a website designed to attack Elon Musk and SpaceX (See "Why Does Brad Summey Hate On Elon Musk So Much?". To this day I am not certain who footed the bill since no one would comment. The website they created, whoiselonmusk.com, was still online until September when the domain registration expired. Remnants of the site are online here. Shortly after I outed this site this was added to the bottom of the page "The Center for Business and Responsible Government (CBRG) is a non-partisan organization dedicated to highlighting cronyism and its effect on American taxpayers and policy. We believe public officials should establish an even playing field for all businesses to compete in the marketplace, not just those special interests who line their pockets." Of course this organization does not exist and never did.

This is how big aerospace and other actors try and undermine the competition these days.If they can't compete with a better product at a better price they head for the gutter instead. What is pathetic is how badly they try and hide their tracks such that any enterprising journalist can use Google searches and make a few phone calls to reveal the true nature of these smear efforts.

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