China seeks space cargo launches well below prices NASA pays SpaceX

The China Manned Space Agency (CMSE) last week put out a call for low-cost cargo haulage services to its space station. The announcement said Beijing wants cheap transportation to Tiangong to foster commercial space activity and enhance the space station's activities. The deadline for applications is July 15, so there's not …

[Will Godfrey]

Why?

Floppy disks actually banned?

What on earth for? Are they regarded as some form of lethal weapon?

Ah! Just followed the link. Not a generic ban then, just for official stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Replicating SpaceX hardware without SpaceX labour costs... Not impossible, especially when emigration if being made harder over time. And living standards in "high paying / high cost" countries are increasingly questionable.

It wouldn't tempt me, but the right sort of person might well jump.

[ChoHag]

> PWC's Australian arm is in trouble after offering advice on how to get around tax rules its people learned of in supposed confidence.

There are confidential tax rules?

[John Brown (no body)]

Yes, when they are being created and haven't been publicly announced. Getting a heads-up in advance can be very lucrative when you more time to prepare in advance of the upcoming changes. Ideally, all tax changes should be flagged so far in advance that even a sneaky and surreptitious early warning would be of no real help, but we all know how governments like to introduce changes to increase the tax take so they are implemented almost instantly while those changes which reduce the tax take are announced to take effect in the next tax year (or even later in some cases), especially if they can announce the tax reductions multiple times so it appears there are even more reductions than are actually happening :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be easy

They've probably already stolen everything from SpaceX.

[Charlie Clark]

The metric tonne - 1000kg

Really, it's easy to use existing spelling which clearly differentiates between the notionally imperial "ton" (how much is that exactly?) and the metric tonne. It's also worth remembering that engineering around the world has been using metric/SI units for decades because it's the best way to avoid multitudes of errors. If the spellchecker still complains then get it fixed!

Either that, or stick with El Reg Standard Units with which the world + dog are intimately familiar.

[druck]

Re: The metric tonne - 1000kg

The Register's USAifcation means they aren't even using proper Imperial units, but the weird system of short changing the former colonists. As an example; this ---->

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The metric tonne - 1000kg

I think it's just one of those long winded exclamations so many Americans are fond of and they probably have no idea what a "metric tonne" is. They just know it's "a lot". eg phrases like "there's gonna a metric fuck-ton of pain commin' your way" hard-man Hollywood-style :-)

And anyway, from what I see of US TV and movies, few people other than in certain industries ever use tons of any kind. Everything seems to be in pounds, at least into the 10's of thousands, maybe even the 100's of 1000's. Maybe they just like huge numbers as compensation for other short comings? :-)

(Someone should tell them there are more centimetres than inches when measuring lengths. You only got 6? I got 15 mate! LOL)