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SpaceX Wins Injunction Against Russian Rocket Purchases
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Reuters is reporting that Space Exploration Technologies, aka SpaceX, has won a Federal Claims Court temporary injunction against the purchase by United Launch Alliance of Russian-made rocket boosters, intended for use by the United States Air Force. In her ruling Judge Susan Braden prohibited ULA and the USAF, 'from making any purchases from or payment of money to [Russian firm] NPO Energomash.' United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin."
It's a wonder that all the government spending on Lockeed and Boeing they have been unable to produce a viable engine themselves. They do have a huge lobbying force, so I doubt this is over yet.
Guess those Russian trampolines aren't so good after all.
media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
Why are you hater on the FREE MARKET? :-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The summary doesn't mention anything about "WHY" they made this ruling or why there was a lawsuit in the first place.
USAF awarded Russia a no-bid contract on 36 rocket boosters. SpaceX filed suit requesting consideration for the contract. The court filed an injunction to prevent sales being made while the trial moves forward.
It was great in theory. The difference between theory and practice being...
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Isn't it odd that US military assets are being launched (at least partially) by Russian hardware? Its especially odd when there is an obvious company that (presumably) manufactures almost all (except probably for electronics) their components here in the US. They're also the only company apparently at least trying to move forward with designs into making space cheaper & easier. I think the workhorses of the ULA (Atlas & Delta) area almost 50 years old with only minor updates & component switches, mostly due to the fact that the old hardware is no longer manufactured.
>Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
That's what Goebbels said to Hitler in 1933.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Um, no. The Air Force gave Russia the contract with zero bidding process. SpaceX literally never had a chance. They're suing for a level playing field where they could bid against Russia in an open process.
The rest of your post is...... well.
see subject
SpaceX are fantastic, world-class innovators, but lobbying the government to tilt the playing field their way smacks of rent-seeking.
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
My spoon is too big.
I think you have it the wrong-way around. SpaceX aren't seeking any favors, they can deliver significant savings to the US government. However, the lobbying by Boeing and Lockheed Martin have allowed them to push through a huge long term agreement using old expensive technology to help exclude cheaper more innovative rivals like SpaceX (who weren't even considered). There needs to be much greater oversight of government contracts to ensure that certification processes etc are simplified to the greatest possible extent to reduce barriers to entry and encourage smaller companies like SpaceX to bid for contracts like this to prevent the taxpayer from being exploited by the likes of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
And to add to the parallels, in both cases the companies are protesting a flawed bidding process.
From "Ad astra per aspera" to "Ad astra per embargo" apparently.
They don't want the government to tilt the playing field their way.
They want to be allowed onto the field at all.
The contract in question was no-compete. There was no bid. The USAF just said 'We're gonna buy some rockets from these guys over here. We're not even considering anyone else.' And SpaceX said 'WTF? Hey judge, shouldn't people be able to compete for this contract?'
And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
with the ongoing sanctions against Russia.
SpaceX are fantastic, world-class innovators, but lobbying the government to tilt the playing field their way smacks of rent-seeking.
What part of "no bid contract" do you not understand? They are only seeking opportunity to bid on the contract.
They aren't asking for an embargo. They are asking for a competition.
"nazi zion WMD on credit free land freeloader religious cabalism"???? Is this from a random word generator?
rent-seeking is what the car dealers are trying to do to Tesla.
You are one very confused fud spreader.
Russia was not given a contract. Check your facts.
Boeing and Lockheed got the contract.
The US (NASA and Air Force) has been buying and using these motors since forever.
The US licensed the technology (Pratt and Whitney), and could build them stateside any time they want. Its just been cheaper to buy them in Russia from the original manufacturers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There's more to this than the cloying meme "level playing field". In this case there's legitimate foreign policy issues -- the US buys agreeability from foreign governments via contracts for cold, hard western cash, not just foreign aid.
Depending on the framework Congress laid out, this could be an unconstitutional infringement on the legislative and executive branches,, the latter of which is constitutionally charged with foreign policy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Clearly he's search engine trolling.
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
It isn't wrong to do sole source contracts as a public entity. I did them when I was working for a state agency several times. The big thing is that you need to demonstrate convincingly (and be willing to back that up in a court room if necessary... like SpaceX is trying to call the bluff here with regards to ULA and the USAF) that the company you are sole sourcing is really the only company which could possibly provide the project being desired.
There are a couple of ways to get that to happen, and one of common methods (IMHO it really is corruption at its finest) is to over specify the technical requirements in such a way that one and only one company could possibly present a bid. For example with a computer, you could require that the computer has certain non-standard connectors, be very specific with an operating system (especially an off-beat OS like QNX), monitors have a 63.224 Hz screen refresh capability (or some other really weird number like this), and other details that exclude anybody else. You can reject any other potential bids simply because they failed to meet the original specification.
That is essentially what ULA has done here with regards to their rocket purchases, and SpaceX is crying foul by pointing out their rockets are just as capable to put up many of the same payloads reliably as well. Once the Falcon Heavy has launched a few times (its first launch may be this year or early next year), SpaceX will literally be able to launch anything ULA has with its inventory of rockets. There are other companies like ATK-Orbital that could conceivably be able to compete as well at least for some of these payloads.
The analogy would be some state college putting out for bid a bunch of Mac computers, and some PC dealer filing protest suggesting their products are just as capable for the applications being done at the college. The Apple dealer would point out that specialized software excludes the PCs, and the finger pointing goes on from there in the protest.
Indeed I think Elon Musk and his lawyers are going to bring up Orbital several times if this goes before a courtroom basically saying "it isn't just us".
If it was just about the designs would could steal any number of them from ourselves (50 years of rocket engine designs to choose from). The issue appears to be the ability to manufacture, which we seem to have lost and would require time & money to restart. All that is except for SpaceX, they appear to build their engine in house. The Merlin engine is a bit less efficient than the RD-180 but its the most efficient hydrocarbon engine developed in the US.
Just as Russia resurrects the Solvet holiday of May Day
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I think where your explanation and analogies fall apart is that no bids were ever done. The problem isn't with a sole-source contract (every individual launch is a sole-source contract) but with an uncompeted sole-source contract. Nobody else was even given an opportunity to try to meet the requirements, over-specified or otherwise.
You are a complete fucking idiot.
Sounds like a recipe for happiness.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
That's not at all what happened. The judge did not consider or rule on the merits of the contract at all, nor did the judge block or directly interfere with that contract. The judge considered that ULA intends to buy Russian engines from an individual on the sanctions list, which could be illegal. As such, the injunction is limited to forbidding the purchase of the engines until the proper authorities can decide if the purchases would be sanction violations.
The rest of the contract is (so far) free to move forward, using existing Russian engines already in ULA's possession (they claim to have a two-year supply).
I keep hearing this, but I find it difficult to believe that with all the flagrant corruption going on in Russia, it wouldn't be cheaper to build them domestically (unless the corruption is even worse here).
"ULA aren't worried, because they have enough engines in the back room to fill orders while ULA gets their manufacturing up."
ULA has a two year supply and just sold 5 years worth to the military. As if that weren't fun enough, Boeing & Sierra Nevada had planned on using that rocket for their crewed spacecraft launches to ISS. I hope they aren't in a hurry.
ULA prefers Atlas V because it is more profitable for them. But it uses engines from Russia.
The Russian engines are purchased from a company with ties to one of the people targeted by US sanctions against Russia... so the judge has granted the injunction to prevent purchasing those Russian engines.
ULA has a stockpile of some Russian engines already, and they have the (less profitable for them) Delta IV if they can't launch Atlas V for any reason... and running out of engines would be one of those reasons. But ULA would prefer to continue buying engines. But we've been paying them to have both rockets available, so they'd better be able to show up with what they've promised.
Separate from this injunction, SpaceX is asking for a review of the large block by of ULA cores, as it was done just before (a few days before) one of the final milestones of SpaceX being qualified to launch for the air force. I think it's not unreasonable for them to say that it's unacceptable to do a huge purchase when if you wait for a few days you would have multiple vendors competing for the bid.
Even John McCain thinks that contract smells fishy: link
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
His explanation also falls apart about the over-spec'd trivialities.
A PC OS vs a Mac OS is a major difference in how the computer behaves, what software you can run on it. Such a requirements difference in a RFQ could easily be sustained.
An arbitrary monitor refresh rate cannot be shown to be a functionally meaningful requirement. A contract with such a provision would be laughed out of court if a losing bidder were to challenge it. If a bid request is steered to one vendor without a substantial, valid reason it is illegal.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
No bid contracts are not illegal and there are very good reasons for signing them.
We have an entire secret space program. Fully ran by non-terrestrial officers. (earth humans who live in space)
The reason these companies all of a sudden can't fly around is because everything is in black projects. You really think that 50 years later all of these companies can't fly around in space?
Look up Gary McKinnon and countless whistleblowers.
This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 is just a trickle down that the public gets to see of the real good shit. All the secret spacecraft is classified top secret under "national security reasons" (the usual excuse)
It's all a farce, a show, a fake, a fassad, to give the impression that spacex is "americas space company" and "how dare the military use anything from those dirty russians"
The USA and Russia are in reality allies who work closely with one another, especially their intelligence agencies.
The difference between theory and practice being...
Cookies, a 5th of scotch, an angry monkey
How many cookies? It takes 900 quintillion cookies to win over the kitten managers.
media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
It's the mainstream, "Crazed, Lone Dictator" narrative...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Harming Russians just because they are Russian is ridiculous. That is such an extreme form of racism that the average person doesn't even understand it. To the normal person, ie SE Asian, the idea that one white person hates another white person due to racism is insanity. I know the Irish hate the British for being more successful. The USAians hate the Italians for having a strong culture. The French hate every nonFrench white person for not being French. That is the way of whites. The average person is, obviously(!), not white so we don't understand these Republicans. USAians hating Russians because of their race is just bizarre. To us, they're both white.
I suggest getting Elon's cock out of your mouth long enough to breathe.
ULA is trying to make the case that their rockets are indeed as different from those of SpaceX as a Mac is from a PC, hence why the contract doesn't need to go out to a bid. It is also on these kind of mundane details that ULA is furthermore claiming as reasons and rationale for why SpaceX doesn't meet the technical requirements for launching EELV-class payloads.
I didn't say it was a perfect analogy, and since you understand computer technology you see how such a contract bid would be really silly and obvious misapplication of the contracting process. Sadly, I have seen some real world "sole source-no bid" contracts awards that were done on equally silly reasons. I can't give specifics of those contracts because of a NDA, but they did involve several million dollars and some government agencies as well. I have also seen such contracts thrown out and forced into a bidding situation precisely because the officials involved forgot to take everything into consideration and missed a few points that the law required for those sort of sole source contracts.
Your objection is sort of proving my point too.
Nah, it's a literal translation of "hello" from Russian.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine is not going to happen so long as everyone continues to do exactly what Putin wants. Nobody is seriously getting in his way apart from very minor annoyances. He's happy with a client state that does what it is told to do, and it's shaping up to be exactly that with no serious opposition from any direction.
So the promise to oppose an invasion isn't so bad since it's unlikely to have to be carried out. As for the ignored sanctions looking like weakness and the stupidity of getting involved I agree entirely, but there are hints that there has been some involvement for some time by US agencies dabbling incompetently in Ukrainian politics so abandoning them would have looked bad as well. Stuff that works in Central America doesn't have a chance versus ex-KGB that like to leave Polonium calling cards so it's the wrong place for rogue agencies to play inept games.
Especially when a lot of those boundaries were laid in place as land-grabs by the winners. Israel anyone? Yeah, don't mind us, we're just going to take this chunk of what's been your land for a millenium, including your most sacred religious sites and your entire Mediterranean sea border, and give it to a bunch of our allies who happen to also have a major axe to grind against you. Your team lost the war, so Suck It Up. We like hamstringing your economy and having a strong military base in the middle of your territory.
I'm not getting the Israel analogy here. Historically, the Jews never left the area, and post WWI, European Jews, who were @ the receiving end of pogroms, be it from Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox kingdoms, moved to Palestine where they bought land way above market rates from the local Arabs. In the meantime, due to WWII and the holocaust, support for the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish state where all Jews could live w/o fear of persecution, increased. No Arabs were displaced by Jews - most were encouraged to leave by the surrounding countries - Jordan, Egypt & so on.
Regardless of the history, fact remains that today, Israel still has a substantial Arab Muslim population - ain't that how 'Palestinian' is defined? (Never mind that the term didn't exist before 1964, and prior to 1948, it was used to describe Palestinian Hebrews, not Arabs). Those who left between 1948 & 1991, for whatever reason, should by now have gotten citizenship in whichever Arab/Muslim country they settled - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, et al. The reason they haven't is that the Arab League has made it a matter of policy to keep them permanently in 'refugee' status, so that they can use them to demographically obliterate Israel, and reconquer it.
People who are concerned about ethnically re-drawing borders should look @ the Arabs - whether in North Sudan (Darfur), Iraq/Syria (Kurds), as well as their treatment of ethnic minorities like Copts in Egypt or Maronites in Lebanon. That would make even Russian treatment of gays look like Paris Hilton servicing her 'clients'.
Was there any polling data from the Crimea/Sevastopol that would suggest that most Crimean Russians were happy to be a part of the Ukraine, and did not want their land to be a new federal subject of Russia? Particularly given that different governments in Kiev had different opinions on whether Russian should continue to be a working language in Ukraine?
Uh, that's only implemented for some people, not others. For instance, Kosovo has been forcibly separated from Serbia b'cos Albanians are a majority there who don't want to be a part of Serbia. However, at the same time, in Bosnia, the region of Srpska, which is heavily Serb and whose people want to join Serbia, has been disallowed from doing so.
The West opened a can of worms on Kosovo, and Russia just proved the logic in Crimea, which NATO can't do a thing about. If only the Russians can back up the Serbs in occupying & annexing Srpska, that will puncture Western arguments in the region, and also illustrate even further why NATO is outdated, and has been since 1991.
Unlike Crimea, Donetz & Kharkiv are still majority Ukrainian: Russians are a large minority, but not even a plurality, so Moscow would have a weaker argument for annexing that area, than it did for Crimea.
Being moronic on foreign policy is these days a bipartisan attribute. In the 1990s, Clinton damaged the opportunity for improved relations by supporting the Chechens in their insurgency, and in the 2000s, Bush damaged the Russian (and other ex-Soviet) goodwill of 9/11 by opposing their regimes far more effective squelching of their Islamic insurgencies. Like Uzbekistan gave the US 2 airbases for their Afghan operations, but by diplomatically trying to embarrass the Karimov regime, the US pissed off Tashkent, who then closed those bases. Unlike the US, regimes like Uzbekistan know how to deal w/ jihadi insurgencies, and by reading them the ACLU playbook, the US just showed how incompetent it is in dealing w/ jihad.
Uninformed will of the people. In other words... "the market is stupid".
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
money state pays = purchase cost + lobbying cost + profit