totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[mikegarrison]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

Wouldn't this create incentives for the employer to be extra careful? Seems like someone coming from not the US or EU would lack a paper trail to properly vet them. Even stuff as simple as criminal records.

They can be careful, yes, but not at the expense of discriminatory hiring practices. They are expected to be able to follow both sets of laws.

[tater]

Not a lawyer, will ask my buddy tomorrow who is, but the code on "protected individual" (which  ITAR references) says:

Quote

(3) “Protected individual” defined As used in paragraph (1), the term “protected individual” means an individual who—

(A)

is a citizen or national of the United States, or

(B)

is an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence, is granted the status of an alien lawfully admitted for temporary residence under section 1160(a) or 1255a(a)(1) of this title, is admitted as a refugee under section 1157 of this title, or is granted asylum under section 1158 of this title; but does not include (i) an alien who fails to apply for naturalization within six months of the date the alien first becomes eligible (by virtue of period of lawful permanent residence) to apply for naturalization or, if later, within six months after November 6, 1986, and (ii) an alien who has applied on a timely basis, but has not been naturalized as a citizen within 2 years after the date of the application, unless the alien can establish that the alien is actively pursuing naturalization, except that time consumed in the Service’s processing the application shall not be counted toward the 2-year period.

But the very next paragraph says:

Quote

(4) Additional exception providing right to prefer equally qualified citizens

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, it is not an unfair immigration-related employment practice for a person or other entity to prefer to hire, recruit, or refer an individual who is a citizen or national of the United States over another individual who is an alien if the two individuals are equally qualified.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by tater

[mikegarrison]

If you just have a blanket ban on hiring people with refugee status, how can you claim the people you do hire are "equally qualified"?

Other companies handle this just fine. There is no reason SpaceX can't. The DOJ brought this to their attention more than three years ago and told them to fix their practices. They refused. So now it is moving to legal action.

[tater]

Do they have such an explicit ban though? If their job postings contain the boilerplate reference to 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), then anyone who wants can look it up and find out if they meet that standard—but that law literally also says the employer can always elect to prefer a US citizen. So 100 refugees could apply, and 1 citizen, and the citizen getting the jobs seems legal to me, but what do I know. Would be interesting to know how many people with this status work in other ITAR shops. Lawsuit might result in this becoming less opaque? Cause I've seen a few people online—guys running space startups—suggesting that the rules are not well understood even by them.

a little over 1 hour til launch 1 today:

 

[tater]

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by tater

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I've seen a few people online—guys running space startups—suggesting that the rules are not well understood even by them.

The rules can be be quite complicated and tedious to follow, but SpaceX is not a "startup" and certainly has the legal resources to be expected to understand and comply with the rules. And as I said, the DOJ told them they were out of compliance three years ago. It's not like they just didn't know they were breaking the law.

[tater]

19 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

The rules can be be quite complicated and tedious to follow, but SpaceX is not a "startup" and certainly has the legal resources to be expected to understand and comply with the rules. And as I said, the DOJ told them they were out of compliance three years ago. It's not like they just didn't know they were breaking the law.

There are multiple laws here, not "a" law. I quoted the anti-discrimination law, and it flatly states that US citizens are always allowed preference in hiring.

One story says that SpaceX has 1 such employee. It's hard to find exact data, but one site says there have been ~500,000 such asylum seekers accepted since 1990. Assuming they have some path to a different status, then the number in circulation is some fraction of that. Call it ~150k. That means if all employers hired these people randomly, you would expect SpaceX to have 4 among their 10,000 employees. If people randomly applied I suppose. Another site claimed that there are typically 10-20k such people per year—but their status changes over time, obviously. If it's closer to 10k/yr and it resets after 7 (5 yrs after green card, plus 18-24 months), then SpaceX might be assumed to have 2—if applicants are random.

So they have 1, and might be expected to have as many as 4. <shrug> Again, I didn't even read up about this until yesterday. DOJ can say whatever they like, but the actual legality is for the courts to decide, not DOJ—so a suit is maybe the best solution to clarify things. I'm honestly surprised that ITAR and this sort of law could possibly conflict, seems like bad lawmaking to me. One law saying people can be held criminally liable for tech transfer, another saying you must consider hiring randos who walked across the border and claimed asylum (there's supposed to be a paperwork process before coming over, but that is not always the case). A guy posted who was an engineer on an H1B and he said he could not apply for ITAR positions, and that checks out as far as I can tell (from a Canadian who asked that question on a forum of a law practice that does immigration law). As I said, the law seems like a mess when close allies (NATO) can't even get jobs.

We'll have to see what happens.

[mikegarrison]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

There are multiple laws here, not "a" law. I quoted the anti-discrimination law, and it flatly states that US citizens are always allowed preference in hiring.

No, it did not say that. It said only if they are equally qualified.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, tater said:

DOJ can say whatever they like, but the actual legality is for the courts to decide, not DOJ—so a suit is maybe the best solution to clarify things. 

The DOJ lawsuit sets out some pretty specific claims.  Among these is the claim that SpaceX used its public announcements, job applications, and online recruiting communications to exclude asylees and refugees. This isn't hard to verify: the internet is forever, after all.

Then I used WayBack to look up historical postings and found this:

• To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.  

And then I looked up a current job posting on the SpaceX recruiting website (emphasis shows additions):

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

So that's the difference. It might not seem like a huge difference, but it's a meaningful one: as job postings go it plainly violates Title VII, by discouraging applicants based on national origin.  An inaccurate job posting by itself isn't proof of discriminatory intent, but taken together with the other evidence proffered by DOJ's lawsuit it tends to support their allegations of broadly discriminatory practices (particularly if the DOJ notified them and they didn't correct it).

1 hour ago, tater said:

One law saying people can be held criminally liable for tech transfer, another saying you must consider hiring randos who walked across the border and claimed asylum (there's supposed to be a paperwork process before coming over, but that is not always the case).

Form I-589 (the paperwork required for application for asylum) can be filed before crossing the border or arriving at a point of entry to seek asylum, but it does not have to be filed in advance. Federal law gives asylum-seekers up to a year after they enter the country before they are required to file (18 USC § 1158(a)(2)(B)). In fact, if initial screening is conducted by USCIS, then USCIS will automatically treat the screening itself as a filing of the application.

However, an "Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158" would be a person who has not only filed Form I-589 but has actually been granted asylum under subsection (b)(1)(A) of the code section. So, not some rando who walked across the border and just claimed asylum.

Edited August 31, 2023 by sevenperforce
typo

[tater]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

No, it did not say that. It said only if they are equally qualified.

So if the refugee won the world barista championship, and the other US citizen applicants had not, then it might be discriminatory. If both are "baristas" seeking $18/hr employment without something unambiguous making one less qualified seems like a non-issue.

[tater]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Then I used WayBack to look up historical postings and found this:

Oh, so they need to change the specific laws cited on their job postings?

Thanks for that analysis, makes more sense now.

[sevenperforce]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Then I used WayBack to look up historical postings and found this:

Oh, so they need to change the specific laws cited on their job postings?

Thanks for that analysis, makes more sense now.

Yeah, basically. But not just the laws they cite -- it's also the terms they use, and the terms they don't use.

It's like if the admissions office at a university had a posting that said "Federal law prohibits us from considering student applications without proof of Selective Service registration or proof of exemption." Since only males can register or be exempted from Selective Service, this would imply that federal law prohibits the university from accepting female students, which obviously is not true. Such a posting might just be a mistake/misstatement, but if there was evidence that the contractor refused to accept female students on this basis (e.g., if it refused applications from women on the basis that they did not provide proof of Selective Service registration) then the DOJ could take enforcement action under Title IX.

Or imagine a job posting for a teacher at an elementary school which said "Bright or exotic dyed hair can be a distraction to students: acceptable hair colors for applicants include blonde, strawberry blonde, platinum, light brown, and auburn." This suggests that individuals with naturally black hair (e.g., people of a particular marginalized ethnicity) need not apply. Again, this could just be a miscommunication or mistake, but if they actually turned away applicants based on hair color then they could get in trouble.

[tater]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Among these is the claim that SpaceX used its public announcements, job applications, and online recruiting communications to exclude asylees and refugees. This isn't hard to verify: the internet is forever, after all.

Possibly dumb question: The hiring laws are in fact separate from the ITAR  (and EAR?) laws, so what happens with possible goal conflicts? Ie: if you think that security risk/liability trumps hiring liability.

Ie: who is on the hook if somehow tech is "exported" from a facility? The company/facility? The individual (what if they leave the country with that info?)? Both?

 

[mikegarrison]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

who is on the hook if somehow tech is "exported" from a facility? The company/facility? The individual (what if they leave the country with that info?)? Both?

Both.

But again, *many* companies handle this just fine. The fact that SpaceX has not only not handled it correctly but also has refused to fix the problem for at least three years after the DOJ first warned them about it suggests that the problem lies in SpaceX management, not the laws.

[sevenperforce]

35 minutes ago, tater said:

Possibly dumb question: The hiring laws are in fact separate from the ITAR  (and EAR?) laws, so what happens with possible goal conflicts? Ie: if you think that security risk/liability trumps hiring liability.

The hiring laws prohibit unlawful employment discrimination (on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) but the ITAR laws trump them, because refusing to hire someone based on ITAR is not unlawful. In other words, you aren't refusing based on national origin; you're refusing based on ITAR status. So if you are a foreign national who applies to work for ULA in an ITAR-sensitive role, ULA can honestly say "Sorry, we can't consider your application, at least not without a specific ITAR exemption from the State Department, because ITAR will not allow us to share information with you."

Where SpaceX screwed up (intentionally or unintentionally) was saying the same thing to refugees and asylees with legal status even though ITAR does not prohibit them from hiring refugees and asylees. 

To add to my prior examples: it would be like a hospital telling a gay man, "We can't hire you because the FDA prohibits gay men from coming into contact with blood" when in fact the FDA rule (which has now been rescinded, finally) prohibited gay men from donating blood but said nothing about healthcare employment generally. If it was JUST a job posting, that might be chalked up to a mistake, but if the hospital was also refusing to consider applications from gay men who applied for maintenance work or billing jobs (e.g., no physical patient contact) then it would look much more like a deliberate lie to disguise homophobic discrimination.

[tater]

 

[sevenperforce]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

 

I can't remember if we've covered it -- are these propulsive vents?

 

[tater]

17 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I can't remember if we've covered it -- are these propulsive vents?

I believe so.

 

[tater]

 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

can't remember if we've covered it -- are these propulsive vents?

Looks that way. Possibly for ullage?

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 

I wonder if photos or video could tell us if the amount of detcord hoisted up for install is quite a bit more or not compared to the previous launch test.  I'm guessing they probably at least doubled it in volume (length x diameter) over the last FTS install

[tater]

Live

[sevenperforce]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

Live

Lol, logged in at T+14 seconds.

Staging and second engine start are good.

Aaaand stage 1 landed. Waaaay off to one side though.

[tater]

7 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Aaaand stage 1 landed. Waaaay off to one side though.

Would be cool to see a vid of the octograbber in action, actually.

Seeing off to the side made me think, get that robot out there!