Why SpaceX non hire non-US Citizens even if Elon Musk himself is non American but South African citizen, I heard about ITAR but why?

[Pawelk198604]

Why SpaceX is solely American even trough Elon Musk is non American himself, why there non hiring non-Americans, it should be International company!

 

It's not that I would like to work for SpaceX, I mean i would like to , but besides playing KSP form time to time, I do not have proper qualification   

 

Hiring only It's rather lame move if you ask me! 

 

I wonder does there any space company that recruit people form all around the World 

[Steel]

3 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

Why SpaceX is solely American even trough Elon Musk is non American himself, why there non hiring non-Americans, it should be International company!

 

It's not that I would like to work for SpaceX, I mean i would like to , but besides playing KSP form time to time, I do not have proper qualification   

 

Hiring only It's rather lame move if you ask me! 

 

I wonder does there any space company that recruit people form all around the World 

I imagine it's to do with national security stuff. Plus if they don't hire people from other countries they don't have to go through the bureaucratic nightmare of sponsoring them thought the US visa system.

Also Musk has been a US citizen since 2002.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Steel

[Pawelk198604]

12 minutes ago, Steel said:

I imagine it's to do with national security stuff. Plus if they don't hire people from other countries they don't have to go through the bureaucratic nightmare of sponsoring them thought the US visa system.

Also Musk has been a US citizen since 2002.

Ok than 

https://www.inverse.com/article/21487-elon-musk-spacex-foreign-workers

[sevenperforce]

Not just "national security stuff'; SpaceX is specifically prohibited from hiring people from outside the United States because of the defense and aerospace applications of rocketry.

[YNM]

Most american company whose work involve mostly white-collar work (or salary) will naturalize their employees into US citizens anyway. There have been stories of how people from my country who works in the US in such jobs ends up having dual citizenship - some significant cases - so they do in the end only hire US citizens, but that's the short story.

Why ? Well, AFAIK this have to do with conveniency, and as others had pointed out, some defence implications. Being a US citizen could be seen as a privilege; ensuring your employees in the country are citizens of said country (or at least owns something like a green card or so) eases their live and movement in and out (my cousin's husband works for an american oil company and now after moving a few years ago his entire family lives in the US complete with green cards). So I could only imagine if Musk makes a "branch" company in EU / Schengen area then it's workforce would involve mostly EU citizens. I'm not sure are such moves legible, but if it is that's the only way to ensure someone with other nationalities work for him. Other than that there are still a lot of firms in the side of the world that works in that industry - why not support them instead ?

[Pawelk198604]

23 minutes ago, YNM said:

Most american company whose work involve mostly white-collar work (or salary) will naturalize their employees into US citizens anyway. There have been stories of how people from my country who works in the US in such jobs ends up having dual citizenship - some significant cases - so they do in the end only hire US citizens, but that's the short story.

Why ? Well, AFAIK this have to do with conveniency, and as others had pointed out, some defence implications. Being a US citizen could be seen as a privilege; ensuring your employees in the country are citizens of said country (or at least owns something like a green card or so) eases their live and movement in and out (my cousin's husband works for an american oil company and now after moving a few years ago his entire family lives in the US complete with green cards). So I could only imagine if Musk makes a "branch" company in EU / Schengen area then it's workforce would involve mostly EU citizens. I'm not sure are such moves legible, but if it is that's the only way to ensure someone with other nationalities work for him. Other than that there are still a lot of firms in the side of the world that works in that industry - why not support them instead ?

So in this case i think governments and institution that send satellites, should just boycott SpaceX and any other American space company for that matter into bankruptcy, if they behave so LAME!    

[tater]

It's not lame, it's just fine. No one is stopping other countries from having their own space industry.

SpaceX is a creature of NASA, and NASA is a STEM jobs program paid for with my tax dollars. I don't want those dollars hiring non-citizens unless no citizens are possibly available.

I don't complain about how the PRC spends their money.

[Pawelk198604]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

It's not lame, it's just fine. No one is stopping other countries from having their own space industry.

SpaceX is a creature of NASA, and NASA is a STEM jobs program paid for with my tax dollars. I don't want those dollars hiring non-citizens unless no citizens are possibly available.

I don't complain about how the PRC spends their money.

"SpaceX is a creature of NASA" ? i thought it was private company that NASA only use 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Pawelk198604 said:

So in this case i think governments and institution that send satellites, should just boycott SpaceX and any other American space company for that matter into bankruptcy, if they behave so LAME!    

What nonsense. It's not SpaceX's choice; it's federal law. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, Pawelk198604 said:

"SpaceX is a creature of NASA" ? i thought it was private company that NASA only use 

No NASA, no SpaceX.

They can do what they like, but if they want billions of tax dollars, they can only hire Americans.

Why do you care, it's not your money, you have no skin in the game?

To be clear, it's a private company, but contractors for the US Federal Government must follow certain laws if they wish contracts. Not complying would rule out NASA and the USAF as customers, which are a large % of launches, and a lot of dev money.

[YNM]

On 8/24/2017 at 7:14 PM, Pawelk198604 said:

So in this case i think governments and institution that send satellites, should just boycott SpaceX and any other American space company for that matter into bankruptcy, if they behave so LAME!    

Your local company will do the same. Everyone is lame.

Boycotting is as lame (some groups in my country is pretty focal about such actions and all I can do is hurt my head more every single time).

* I don't want to hasten the closure of this topic, but if it ends up so, I'm terribly, terribly sorry. *

Edited August 30, 2017 by Dman979
Removed political comment.

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, tater said:

No NASA, no SpaceX.

They can do what they like, but if they want billions of tax dollars, they can only hire Americans.

Why do you care, it's not your money, you have no skin in the game?

To be clear, it's a private company, but contractors for the US Federal Government must follow certain laws if they wish contracts. Not complying would rule out NASA and the USAF as customers, which are a large % of launches, and a lot of dev money.

Yes, contracts, but that's not the only thing. It's actually a federal crime to share certain technical information with non US nationals. This includes satellite and launch vehicle data.

[Vanamonde]

Please avoid characterizations of other forum member's nationalities. It never ends well. 

[kerbiloid]

He just wants to simplify Martian immigration laws.

[Nefrums]

5 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

What nonsense. It's not SpaceX's choice; it's federal law. 

This!

 

Elon has himself said that spaceX will start hiring non americans as soon as the US law allows them to do so.  (Q&A section of the ITS presentation, if my memory serves me right)

It was something to do with that rocket science counts as weapons research in the US.

Tesla on the other hand has no problems with hiring foreign workers.

 

[crubs]

 

[Pawelk198604]

10 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

What nonsense. It's not SpaceX's choice; it's federal law. 

So here alternative either they change their company location (with is probably  impossible) US change their Federal law

or other non US aerospace companies severe their scientific ties with SpaceX

Saying simple ITAR = total no cooperation  

 

But on of my friends told me that would probably end bad for both our European aerospace companies  and their Americans counterparts, because could hinder science progress, and could lead that countries like North Korea or Iran would be ahead of both US and EU and that could end bad for both? and what do you think?  

[KSK]

35 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

So here alternative either they change their company location (with is probably  impossible) US change their Federal law

or other non US aerospace companies severe their scientific ties with SpaceX

Saying simple ITAR = total no cooperation  

But on of my friends told me that would probably end bad for both our European aerospace companies  and their Americans counterparts, because could hinder science progress, and could lead that countries like North Korea or Iran would be ahead of both US and EU and that could end bad for both? and what do you think?  

I wasn't aware that SpaceX had any scientific ties with other aerospace companies, US or otherwise. Not in the areas of launch vehicle design and construction. In any case, even if they were allowed to by ITAR, I doubt that SpaceX would be interested in sharing their launch vehicle designs with competitors. Now that might hinder the overall field of launch vehicle design - until somebody decides that they can do a better job than Elon, and starts their own company to prove it.

As for this all ending badly for European aerospace companies? Maybe it will and, speaking as a European, I'd be sorry to see that happen. On the other hand - that's competition for you. Arianespace and ULA have (not unreasonably) prioritized conservative designs and reliability and in some markets I expect those choices will serve them well for quite some time to come. SpaceX clearly has a different set of priorities and so far those are working well for them (at the expense of their competitors) despite a couple of high profile losses of vehicle. However, that may change quite quickly if they have too many more accidents.

As for North Korea and Iran - without wishing to sound complacent, they have plenty of catching up to do already. And I'm prepared to bet quite heavily that the US government in particular is not going to let itself get into a 'missile gap' situation with either of those countries.

Edit. Just to be clear, I believe strongly in scientific cooperation and there are any number of situations where I believe competition is entirely the wrong approach. The launch vehicle market isn't one of them though.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2017 by KSK

[Steel]

44 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

So here alternative either they change their company location (with is probably  impossible) US change their Federal law

or other non US aerospace companies severe their scientific ties with SpaceX

Saying simple ITAR = total no cooperation  

There is one more option:

SpaceX continues to only hire US employees as per the law, the US federal law stays the same as it is now (because let's be honest, no politician who wants to keep their job is going to touch national security regulations) and non-US aerospace companies keep cooperating because it's in their best interests to do so.

 

At the end of the day, the only people who lose out in this system are a few thousand non-US residents who are well-qualified and want a job in SpaceX, and there are plenty of other options for employment available for them.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Steel

[Pawelk198604]

4 minutes ago, KSK said:

I wasn't aware that SpaceX had any scientific ties with other aerospace companies, US or otherwise. Not in the areas of launch vehicle design and construction. In any case, even if they were allowed to by ITAR, I doubt that SpaceX would be interested in sharing their launch vehicle designs with competitors. Now that might hinder the overall field of launch vehicle design - until somebody decides that they can do a better job than Elon, and starts their own company to prove it.

As for this all ending badly for European aerospace companies? Maybe it will and, speaking as a European, I'd be sorry to see that happen. On the other hand - that's competition for you. Arianespace and ULA have (not unreasonably) prioritized conservative designs and reliability and in some markets I expect those choices will serve them well for quite some time to come. SpaceX clearly has a different set of priorities and so far those are working well for them (at the expense of their competitors) despite a couple of high profile losses of vehicle. However, that may change quite quickly if they have too many more accidents.

As for North Korea and Iran - without wishing to sound complacent, they have plenty of catching up to do already. And I'm prepared to bet quite heavily that the US government in particular is not going to let itself get into a 'missile gap' situation with either of those countries.

 

 

Missle  Gap between US and North Korea that would be kind of funny  

[cratercracker]

*crying in Russian*

Can't go to NASA

Nor ESA

Nor JAXA

Or Chinese space agency 

Just my poor and fading Roskosmos..

 

Edited August 25, 2017 by cratercracker

[Pawelk198604]

1 minute ago, cratercracker said:

*crying in Russian*

Can't go to NASA

Nor ESA

Nor JAXA

Or Chinese space agency 

Just my poor and fading Roskosmos..

 

Not just Roskosmos i beet that many bright European engineers would glad to work for SpaceX or American Engineers want to work on European aerospace company, but they cannot because some excrementsty stupid cold war era laws!

[tater]

The law is not stupid at all. The EU has basically the same GDP as the US, ESA could get itself a real budget, and foster EU space companies as the US has done with SpaceX, BO, SN, etc. 

It's, um, not rocket science.

Maybe those engineers could work for Virgin Galactic, or someone could throw a few billion at REL to work on Skylon.

[cratercracker]

13 minutes ago, tater said:

The law is not stupid at all. The EU has basically the same GDP as the US, ESA could get itself a real budget, and foster EU space companies as the US has done with SpaceX, BO, SN, etc. 

It's, um, not rocket science.

Maybe those engineers could work for Virgin Galactic, or someone could throw a few billion at REL to work on Skylon.

Hate it when not everything obeys the laws of rocket science.

[Steel]

19 minutes ago, tater said:

The law is not stupid at all. The EU has basically the same GDP as the US, ESA could get itself a real budget, and foster EU space companies as the US has done with SpaceX, BO, SN, etc. 

It's, um, not rocket science.

Maybe those engineers could work for Virgin Galactic, or someone could throw a few billion at REL to work on Skylon.

The problem with ESA is that only a few countries get noticeable benefits from its budget (the ones with large aerospace industries, so UK, Germany, maybe Italy and that's about it) so only a few countries have an incentive to fund it. For instance, what incentive does Spain or Poland have to pay into the ESA budget if they know most of that money will end up in another country? And let's not even mention the whole political fall out because of Brexit.

It's a much simpler situation across the Atlantic: NASA benefits the US, the US government funds NASA.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Steel