I find this US-centric discussion rather amusing. All I hear is NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX. We get it; US defense companies are big baddies in cahoots with the US governemt. I also understand that NASA plays a big role in the Conspiracy; hell, the wiki page on the
motive of the Conspiracy mentions no one but NASA.
However maybe it would be worth looking beyond the US from time to time. The US is not the only country that claims to have a presence in space.
Countries that have build rockets claimed to be capable of putting a payload into orbit, in order of achievement: Soviet Union, United States, France, Japan, China, United Kingdom, India, Israel, Russia and Ukraine (with capability inherited from the USSR), Iran, North Korea, South Korea.
Countries with satellites, in order of achievement: Soviet Union (Russia), United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, France, Australia, Germany, Japan, China, Netherlands, Spain, India, Indonesia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Israel, Luxembourg, Argentina, Pakistan, South Korea, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Malaysia, Norway, Philippines, Egypt, Chile, Singapore, Taiwan, Denmark, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Cyprus, Nigeria, Iran, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Mauritius, Vietnam, Venezuela, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Belarus, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Azerbaijan, Austria.
Also, with the discussion seemingly revolving around Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, or SpaceX, there seems to indicate a lack of acknowledgement that there are dozens of companies (at least) with some involvement in space tech that are not American, including industry giants like EADS, BAE Systems, Finmeccanica, Mistubishi, Thales or Safran.
This Conspiracy is a fantastic piece of international cooperation.
P.S. What's also interesting is that the FES wiki page I linked above makes a big point of Lyndon Johnson's resolution to establish NASA in 1958, seemingly implying the Conspiracy began with NASA. However it was the Soviets that first claimed to put a satellite in space in 1957, when NASA didn't even exist yet.
Is it the Soviets that initiated the Conspiracy, then? Did the US merely go along with it?