SpaceX Injunction Dissolved 98
An anonymous reader writes "Two weeks ago, SpaceX filed suit against the U.S. Air Force in an attempt to enforce competition for rocket purchases. They argued it was a bad idea to blindly shovel money into Russia's coffers for rides to space, and said there was no way for other rocket manufacturers to get a foot in the door. Last week, it looked like they were getting traction — an injunction was granted, temporarily halting the Air Force's process of buying rockets. Unfortunately for SpaceX, that injunction has now been dissolved. At the heart of the suit was Executive Order 13,661, which blocks the transfer of wealth to people in the Russian Federation who are related to the situation in the Ukraine. SpaceX said that since Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin was the head of their space agency, payments to the agency were effectively payments to him. The U.S. departments of Commerce, State, and the Treasury all sent letters to the court saying this was not the case, and the court agreed. Here's the final ruling."
Re:Once Again (Score:4, Interesting)
By the same argument, are income tax payments "effectively payments" to John Koskinen, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue?
Re:Mission accomplished (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah and HP junk printers are 4x cheaper too, but have you seen the cost of the ink and the quality of the output?
EVERY business selling for the first time to government on a newly privatised endeavour starts off "cheap". The first hit is always free. What is your point? Boeing was once nimble and efficient, too.
Re:didnt you know? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some times I wish this were true, but it is not. I think, Obama is genuinely and sincerely appalled by Putin's aggression against Ukraine and other countries. He is just caught completely by surprise — Obama is a master of class warfare rhetoric, which helps him domestically, but he is learning foreign relations as well as simple history of the world on the job.
This is not me — a racist RethugliKKKan saying it — sympathetic newspapers [nytimes.com] in 2008 agreed, that it is Joe Biden, who brings foreign policy heft to the ticket [go.com]:
I'd say, things could've been a lot worse under an Administration, where a jovial lunatic is the primary fount of foreign policy expertise. Or, maybe, they are just as bad as they could get...
Whereas Putin is an expert, Obama is a neophite — an out-of-his-league amateur. While Putin can order his army into Ukraine at any moment — they already have "PEACEKEERS" painted on their helmets and vehicles — Obama can't even muster enough determination to send body-armor to Ukrainian military.
Re:Once Again (Score:4, Interesting)
"Now it's possible that Russia is so corrupt that there's no meaningful difference between Putin's money and the government's money."
How else do you think Putin attained a net worth of $70B?