Tag: culver-city

Elon Musk’s ‘Godot’ machine cuts its first LA tunnel segment

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk just tweeted that his tunnel-carving operation, The Boring Company, just completed cutting out its first segment with its Beckett-homaging drill, Godot. While the plan is to build an entire subterranean network underneath the streets of Los Angeles, it’s unclear where this first tunnel portion was cut and how far it went. Last we heard, negotiations for permits to start digging under city soil were promising but not concrete. No longer waiting for Godot. It has begun boring and just completed the first segment of tunnel in LA. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2017 Location is important: Back in February, The Boring Company was safely and legally cutting test tunnels in the SpaceX parking lot, but anything beyond the borders of the organization’s land would require getting permission from the city. The founder tweeted that he’d had “promising conversations ” with LA Mayor Eric Garcetti two weeks ago — and that getting permits was harder than developing the tech for his future tunnel network — but we haven’t seen official confirmation that Musk got the green light to start digging on city grounds. That network isn’t for a new public transit system, mind you: The Boring Company’s tunnels will haul cars, bikes and pedestrians on electric sleds at up to 125 miles per hour, according to a concept video released in April, that will shrink half-hour drives aboveground to five-minute blitzes below. The first leg of the network is slated to run from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and up to Sherman Oaks. Source: Elon Musk (Twitter)

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Elon Musk’s ‘Godot’ machine cuts its first LA tunnel segment

Engineer at Boeing admits trying to sell space secrets to Russians

Enlarge / The “high bay” at Boeing’s Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, California. A Boeing employee sold documents from the plant to an FBI undercover agent posing as a Russian intelligence agent. Gregory Allen Justice, a 49-year-old engineer living in Culver City, Calif., has pleaded guilty to charges of attempted economic espionage and attempted violation of the Export Control Act. Justice, who according to his father worked for Boeing Satellite Systems in El Segundo, Calif., was arrested last July after selling technical documents about satellite systems to someone he believed to be a Russian intelligence agent. Instead, he sold the docs to an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation employee. The sting was part of a joint operation by the FBI and the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The documents provided by Justice to the undercover agent included information on technology on the US Munitions List, meaning they were regulated by government International Trade in Arms regulations (ITAR). “In exchange for providing these materials during a series of meeting between February and July of 2016, Justice sought and received thousands of dollars in cash payments,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. “During one meeting, Justice and the undercover agent discussed developing a relationship like one depicted on the television show ‘The Americans.'” Just before he was arrested, Justice offered to take the agent on a tour of the facility where he worked—where he told the agent “all military satellites were built,” according Justice’s plea agreement. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Engineer at Boeing admits trying to sell space secrets to Russians