SpaceX granted injunction in rocket launch suit against government

[Cosmacelf]

Wow, that didn't take long. "Hey, the Russians just might screw the US! Oops, they just did.". Now we get to watch politicians and bureaucrats lie through their teeth as they attempt to wriggle out of this debacle. Oh, they've already started: "Referring to Rogozin’s comments, [ULA spokeswoman] Rye said, “If recent news reports are accurate, it affirms that SpaceX’s irresponsible actions have created unnecessary distractions, threatened U.S. military satellite operations, and undermined our future relationship with the International Space Station.”

What power SpaceX has to be able to do all that in one lawsuit. If US military satellite operations can be threatened by a lawsuit, the US military is f*cking up. It used to be that you'd have to lob an ICBM to at the US to threaten us, now all you have to do is launch a lawsuit. I'm feeling safer already.

 

[Doug_G]

Flabbergasted. Like the Russians need any ideas on how to hit people with a big stick? They just love throwing their weight around. They use their gas supplies as a weapon - quite effectively at that. Cut countries off in the middle of winter and look how fast they'll get concessions. They didn't even have to hint at that to keep Europe from pushing harder on Crimea. The rocket engines for the US military space launch fleet were low-hanging fruit. Shame on the US for merrily putting themselves in that position.

 

[Grendal]

Here is a comment I posted on the article:

So let's get this straight. ULA buys engines from Russia for political reasons from over a decade ago. SpaceX and Elon Musk points out that ULA is buying the engines from someone that America says is a terrorist and we shouldn't be doing business with. Why? Because ULA signed a backroom deal to exclude SpaceX from military launches because they would undercut ULA prices by a significant amount saving taxpayers billions to tens of billions of dollars. SpaceX has the bonus of making all their rockets and engines here in the US. SpaceX is also working hard on a system that will make their prices even less which is an even bigger threat to ULA. ULA puts out a memo that SpaceX is the problem. What was their problem? Pointing out the shady deal the ULA and the military had going with the Russians?

 

[The Blue Owl]

Here is a comment I posted on the article:

So let's get this straight. ULA buys engines from Russia for political reasons from over a decade ago. SpaceX and Elon Musk points out that ULA is buying the engines from someone that America says is a terrorist and we shouldn't be doing business with. Why? Because ULA signed a backroom deal to exclude SpaceX from military launches because they would undercut ULA prices by a significant amount saving taxpayers billions to tens of billions of dollars. SpaceX has the bonus of making all their rockets and engines here in the US. SpaceX is also working hard on a system that will make their prices even less which is an even bigger threat to ULA. ULA puts out a memo that SpaceX is the problem. What was their problem? Pointing out the shady deal the ULA and the military had going with the Russians?

What is really ironic is that once upon a time, when Elon Musk went to Russia looking to buy a rocket from their military, he pulled out because he realized they couldn't be trusted. So he caught up on the science "by reading books", and promptly poured his own money into a crazy venture to actually build rockets himself, not caring if he'd lose his investment because "if something is important enough, it's worth trying it even if there is a high risk of failure."

ULA, although in possession of ample capability and expertise, looks at the same situation and decides, yeah, why not rely on our nemesis for a core strategic capability? They're cheap! We'll make piles of money!

 

[Grendal]

It's my understanding that ULA buys the Atlas V engines from Russia because the government wanted to open trade between the two countries after the wall came down. It was a bonus that the engines are very good and that they could be bought cheap. The problem is that no one realized that there could be problems between the two countries. Or they did, as evidenced by the two year supply of spares, but chose to ignore it since the price was right.

The whole statement BS from ULA is just spin to try and misdirect blame.