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Navy submarines regularly deafen all sorts of animals with their sonars and are implicated in whales beaching themselves to escape the noise. But let’s make El

Navy submarines regularly deafen all sorts of animals with their sonars and are implicated in whales beaching themselves to escape the noise. But let’s make Elon Musk put headphones on seals (plural) because it’s funny to make the billionaire jump through hoops. If I was in Musk’s position I would simply threaten to pack up everything and take all Starship development over to China. I bet a lot of the “essential” paperwork would magically be made to go away.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago
> If I was in Musk’s position I would simply threaten to pack up everything and take all Starship development over to China. I bet a lot of the “essential” paperwork would magically be made to go away. Yeah good luck with that one. ITAR doesn't work that way. The worst threat they could realistically make is to make their IP 100% public domain (in the ITAR sense which is a bit different from the copyright/patent sense) and the US probably would not care in the slightest since that would be a massive whale fall for the domestic launch system industry.
93po 3y ago
He legally wouldn’t be allowed to and would go to prison for the rest of his life if he did. He would also not be able to use the vast majority of his team because they’d also personally risk prison and also losing security clearance which means their careers are over in the US.
- avmich 3y ago
  For all the drawbacks of the USA, today it's the best place on Earth to build projects like SpaceX, period. That's the main reason to stay. Notably the founding father of Chinese space industry worked under von Karman in Caltech and left the USA in disappointment. However that was just one scientist in a rather different time. Today, neither Europe, nor China, nor Russia, nor India or Japan offer opportunities to develop things similar to SpaceX; I'd be quite interested in Chinese development, but would still bet against them.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago

> If I was in Musk’s position I would simply threaten to pack up everything and take all Starship development over to China. I bet a lot of the “essential” paperwork would magically be made to go away. Yeah good luck with that one. ITAR doesn't work that way. The worst threat they could realistically make is to make their IP 100% public domain (in the ITAR sense which is a bit different from the copyright/patent sense) and the US probably would not care in the slightest since that would be a massive whale fall for the domestic launch system industry.

93po 3y ago

He legally wouldn’t be allowed to and would go to prison for the rest of his life if he did. He would also not be able to use the vast majority of his team because they’d also personally risk prison and also losing security clearance which means their careers are over in the US.

avmich 3y ago
For all the drawbacks of the USA, today it's the best place on Earth to build projects like SpaceX, period. That's the main reason to stay. Notably the founding father of Chinese space industry worked under von Karman in Caltech and left the USA in disappointment. However that was just one scientist in a rather different time. Today, neither Europe, nor China, nor Russia, nor India or Japan offer opportunities to develop things similar to SpaceX; I'd be quite interested in Chinese development, but would still bet against them.