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Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

If not for this, I would have applied years ago. Your company is changing the world and I just wish I could be part of it.

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If they really want you, SpaceX can apply for a license from the government that gives them permission to “export” all the ITAR stuff to you.

Yes. The brain of a non-US person is considered foreign soil for export control purposes.

I feel exactly the same way.

I sometimes wonder what "or eligible to obtain the required authorizations" means. Does that just mean that SpaceX has to sponsor the clearance process for you?

I remember reading another thread where they were talking about one or two non-US people working there, it would be nice if they elaborated more on what the process is for foreigners and maybe had some profiles of non-US people in their employee gallery. Even confirmation from a SpaceX person here that they do have people like that would be nice :)

> I sometimes wonder what "or eligible to obtain the required authorizations"

For stuff that goes beyond just being a US Citizen or Permanent Resident with no criminal record:

If they want you to do an SF-86 with the US OPM for a Secret or better clearance, it really means "if you even THINK you have something negative in your personal background, don't waste our time or yours in applying"

(reference: I'm one of the peoples whose full set of personal data was stolen in the OPM data breach)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

Not really in any way SpaceX specific, but this is something you will commonly see if applying with any large defense contractor/US-based aerospace industry firm.

Please don’t spread this sort of FUD. I’ve had cleared colleagues who had nuanced opinions on which pot or acid to use, or who were draft dodgers from their home countries, or who were flamingly out with any kink you could care to name.

They care about blackmail material, oaths to other governments, felonies, and not a lot else.

Not my experience at all - prior clearances and NDAs preclude me from going into detail, but I personally saw a number of people who wasted a lot of time going through the process and getting denied for things in the same category as the first part of your statement.

It's true that almost any randomly chosen member of the DoD can get a regular 'secret' clearance for things that aren't especially super sensitive (I've met some very immature 20 year olds who only had Secret probably by virtue of the fact they were too young to have made any major mistakes in their life yet), but when you go beyond that, the requirements are greater.

Re: being flamingly out and kinky, the key part there is out. This isn't the 1950s were getting blackmailed over being gay is a super high risk to somebody if they're already voluntarily flamingly out.

The issue in this case is not security clearances, but getting authorization to share ITARed data with foreign persons.

There are SpaceX jobs that require security clearance, too, but they're in the minority.

Similar story for me. I was really into model rockets from age 7 to 11, and went to Euro Space Camp.

I studied Engineering, but made the choice to go into electronics rather than aerospace because of my nationality issues (see recent comments).

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