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SpaceX Sues Valador For Defamation
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like aerospace consulting firm Valador tried to bite off more than it can chew. After already having bagged lucrative 'safety review' contracts with SpaceX' competitors, it tried to sell its services to SpaceX as well. However, according to SpaceX' claims in a recent court filing, Valador tried to juice up their sales pitch by first spreading rumors at key NASA offices that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is 'unsafe', and then generously offering its services to SpaceX to aid them with addressing any undeserved bias against them among NASA officials. In true California fashion (being the most litigious state of the nation), SpaceX is having none of that and is taking Valador to court for defamation, seeking damages identical to the value of the consulting contract Valador tried to sell to them." CT: It appears that the link in this story has disappeared. If you can find something better, post it.
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This seems like a clear cut cases of defamation. Intentionally spreading malicious rumors, and then offering to clean up those same rumors for a price is pretty low, and if Valador is guilty, they absolutely should be sued.
Everyone believes your product is crap...
... because we told them that.
You need better PR and management.
We can suggest a company.
lol
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
SpaceX vs. Valador: The Price of Success
When I arrived at work this morning, I found this gem of news in my inbox. I have no personal knowledge of what happened and nothing to add to the article - but I think it pretty much speaks for itself:
Quote 1:
Early in June 2011, on behalf of Valador, Fragola attempted to obtain a consulting contract from SpaceX worth as much as $1 million. He claimed that SpaceX needed an ‘independent’ analysis of its rocket to bolster its reputation with NASA based on what he called an unfair ‘perception’ about SpaceX. SpaceX did not respond favorably to Fragola’s offer.
Quote 2:
Fragola sent this email to a NASA official on June 8: “I have just heard a rumor [] that the Falcon 9 experienced a double engine failure in the first stage and that the entire stage blew up just after the first stage separated.”
Quote 3:
“Fragola’s statements are blatantly false [] there was not ‘double-engine’ failure, nor even a single engine failure. The launch was broadcast by a camera on the Dragon spacecraft, which vividly showed the separation of the first stage - and no explosion occurred.”
Some of us are in this because we want to see humanity making children in space as soon as possible; others are because they want to line their pockets as much as possible. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who falls into which category.
Posted on Friday, June 17 2011. Tagged with: spaceSpaceX
Who the heck is Valador, and why do they think they have so much experience in space technologies that they can sell advices to other players in the field?
NASA doing that I could understand (I mean you know, they have nothing else to do these days, and if anybody knows about blowing space vehicles, it's them), but "Valador"?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The lawsuit was brought in Virginia. http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/06/16/Space.pdf...
geek. lawyer.
First, note that all we have so far is an allegation. Although we tend to like SpaceX around here, Valador are currently only accused scum, not confirmed scum.
Second, the alleged defamation occurred on June 8 2011. courthousenews.com reports on the suit on June 16. So that is offence to suit in about a week!
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Um, last time I looked California is the most populous state in the nation. This submitter claim is as bogus as those who try to claim the 9th district court is somehow biased because it decides more cases of X (fill in bias here), while ignoring that it represents most states west of the rockies.
Full quote from interestingly slanted summary:
In true California fashion (being the most litigious state of the nation)
Remain calm! All is well!
So is Valador run by Sicilians or people from New Jersey? Sounds like they got the protectionism racket nicely transformed for tech subcontracting work.
"What's an Aluminum falcon"?
... investing in lawyers, the only growth industry in the US. The MIC is, of course, a destruction industry.
If the other companies using valador have any sense they will fire them immediately and have nothing more to do with them.
Many of the comments here question the ethics of Valador. Here's an interesting tidbit: the CEO, Kevin Mabie, is a U.S. military veteran, disabled in the line of duty. Check this out.. Which raises two questions:
1) How dare you people dishonor a distinguished military veteran, who lost his ... something ... defending your freedoms? Don't you realize that the moment he was discharged from active duty, he instantly became a paragon of virtue, unable to lie, cheat, or defraud, and thus this accusation by SpaceX is not only baseless, but treasonous?
2) How difficult is it to fake this sort of thing? And does anyone in the Slashdot community care enough to go the extra mile to check his credentials, and possibly make some *real* news?
Yikes, where is Superman when you need him?
Makes sense.
Because he was a backseat driver in an aircraft and fell out of his bunk once too often he's free to employ as many defamatory, even criminal business practices as he wants...
In fact, I wonder if there is any tie from that guy back to L-Mart? These days L-Mart is working hard on hit jobs on SpaceX. They have done loads of lobbying jobs on SpaceX, trying to prevent them from even getting a CHANCE at a job, and now has started an astroturfing 'journalists' similar to MS's use of Rob Enderle against Linux and Android. Sadly, it means that SpaceX has had to waste time and money fighting not just Valador, but L-Mart's lobbyists and hitmen.
There are now many companies that are fighting against all that Musk attempts to do. He really is shaking up the Global industries as he decides to go into them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This link works as well: http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2011/06/spacex-vs-valdo.html
Would somebody be so kind as to crack these spammers? Perhaps steal some money, or simply put in large fake orders so as to tie this idiot up?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"In true California fashion (being the most litigious state of the nation)"
WTF does that mean? That if you are defamed you wouldn't actually sue unless your company was based in California, because we all know that suing liars is a 'California' thing?
I'm a military veteran and I say the guy is a dirt bag. Would you dare to contradict me? Because by your own admission that would be tantamount to treason.
Many of the comments here question the ethics of Valador. Here's an interesting tidbit: the CEO, Kevin Mabie, is a U.S. military veteran, disabled in the line of duty.
I challenge anyone to say that a tiny little compartment sitting on top of a gigantic tube of high combustible fuel which is intentionally ignited is actually safe!
Let's not forget additional issues such as the fact such as it being basically a cylinder with tiny little fits on its ass end being shot up at insane speeds into the extremely unfriendly atmosphere of the earth, later to then reenter at even more insane speeds that damn near engulfing the returning capsule with flames caused by drag against... AIR!!!
Oh... and if there's the slightest little leak while it's outside of the earth's atmosphere, pretty much everyone inside the capsule will be suffocating to death or being ripped into the vacuum of space.
Let's be blunt about this... the fucking thing is a death trap!
If they can figure out a way to launch the rocket using a non-combustible propellant, make it go a hell of a lot slower, put big enough fins on it to allow it to correct course at all times, and find a way of slowing it down so much that by the time it enters the atmosphere on return, there isn't a huge amount of drag produced. That would probably make it safer.... now let's work on how to get it from the atmosphere back to earth without it falling the entire way... that sounds dangerous too.
To suggest that this thing is anything other than unsafe would be lying.
To suggest that your company has the expertise to make something like this safe is false advertising on a criminal scale.
Was TFS trying to be ironically defamatory towards California?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The Falcon 9 isn't safe. But then again I doubt that any rocket will ever be "safe". It will be a long time before you strap a human into any thing that then goes from 0 to 18,000+ MPH and well over 100 miles up in anything that a reasonable person calls safe. Space travel is not safe or fool proof. Heck the only reason that we can strap people in to aluminum tubes and fly them around at 500+mph and 7 plus miles up and make it reasonable safe is around 100 years of mistakes and many many flights.
Of course Valador is using the oldest trick in the book. The best lie starts with a truth. I doubt that SpaceX would take unnecessary risks. If they need a test pilot I am willing to go. But as Q said in Star Trek
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid."
The Falcon 9 isn't safe, being safe is for children. Adults make a trade off between the risks and the befits and then takes those risks.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This isn't a defense of Valador, just trying to get people a fair-minded picture of how this stuff works.
People starting a business in this area generally have some cool idea and genuinely want to make something real and useful. They then get bogged down in trying to convince someone in the government with the authority to take action that they aren't yet another business with a cool sounding idea that can't actually deliver. If you aren't, at least on paper, woman owned, minority owned or veteran owned, forget about it, you simply won't get any contracts.
Many of the comments here question the ethics of Valador. Here's an interesting tidbit: the CEO, Kevin Mabie, is a U.S. military veteran, disabled in the line of duty. Check this out.. Which raises two questions:
1) How dare you people dishonor a distinguished military veteran, who lost his ... something ... defending your freedoms? Don't you realize that the moment he was discharged from active duty, he instantly became a paragon of virtue, unable to lie, cheat, or defraud, and thus this accusation by SpaceX is not only baseless, but treasonous?
2) How difficult is it to fake this sort of thing? And does anyone in the Slashdot community care enough to go the extra mile to check his credentials, and possibly make some *real* news?
Speaking as a veteran myself, though not disabled in any way:
1) Do keep in mind that most of that attitude is a reaction to the disgraceful treatment Veitnam vets got. People basically took their frustrations with US policy out on veterans who had, overwhelmingly, served honorably.
And, generally, you can question a veteran's honor as much as you like; you just haven't actually earned the right to be taken seriously.
2) VA doctors do physical exams to ensure that you have a legitimate disability. The biggest disconnect is that people assume that their common sense idea of disability is even remotely close to the medical definition of disability. I know a guy out on Crohn's, but people tend to think, "how is having to go the bathroom a lot a disability?!"
There's no good excuse for a fishing expedition, nor would justice be well served by such. My recommendation: let the lawsuit be settled on the merits and don't demean yourself in this way.
Sounds like Yelp's business model...
I'm sure LulzSec could fake that page if you asked them nicely
Titan III was never man-rated. Gemini-Titan was a Titan II derivative.
I don't believe that Falcon9 has been man-rated yet.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm not arguing that among veterans, fraud is common. I'm arguing that among fraudsters, false claims of military service are quite common.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/waw/press/2007/sep/operationstolenvalor.html
If Mabie really has engaged in fraud and extortion in his business practices, wouldn't it be interesting if he was also lying about his military service, dishonoring veterans like yourself? It's a long shot, but you never know.