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NASA Investigates Possible Sabotage by Worker
mytrip writes "NASA said today it is investigating suspected sabotage of a recorder placed on the shuttle Endeavour for delivery to the space station where it will track physical stresses on the orbiting lab."
Someone tried to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but discovered that one of the holes was blocked.
Dr Smith works for a subcontractor now? That Jupiter2 gig must have finished.
TFA's a bit light on details but maybe someone just dropped a wrench on the thing. OTOH if it's cut wires or something like that's another story...
Accept Eris as your Fnord and personally sate her
Spies could be everywhere. You must report only to us, the communist party. We want to protect you from harm, so we must know everything. Even about your parents! So, what do you know, child? Oh, woops... Wrong country. Still could be spies though! Prepare for war!
Brilliant Journalism!
Two! Measly! Paragraphs!
=/
I know NASA might have been sketchy on the details, but I can't believe this has made its way to the front page with a few lines of text in the fine article. I know we never RTFA, but we don't have a bloody chance today! How can you get a meaningful discussion out of this?!
Ahhhhh.
Bye bye, karma.
Talk about a vague story, I bet half the comments on Slashdot in the last 24 hours have more to them than that story did.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
More info at BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6918490.stm "The discovery came as an independent health panel found astronauts had been allowed to fly after drinking alcohol." Is this a joke? So all this time 'The Right stuff' was in reference to a Johnny Walker?!?
FTA: The recorder, which does not play a role in protecting astronauts or the space station, was damaged by an unidentified person or persons and will be repaired. No word yet on suspects, but NASA investigators said it was "peppered pretty good."
I was flipping bits on an abacus, newb.
Here everybody, this one has much more info: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/26/nasa.computers.re ut/
My sig is permanently on strike.
The BBC has a much better article that goes into the incident in detail: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6918490.stm
The damage was done by a (currently) unidentified sub-contractor on a non-essential computer intended to collect and moniter data from sensors that detect the vibrations and forces on the space station's external trusses.
There have been several incidents at NASA that could only be caused by sabotage. None know to make it to the pad.
;)
Of course, why is this happening? Who would do it? At this point it just looks like a group that wants NASA to fail.
I blame Thomas Dolby.
So he's still trying to do his thing. Wonder what happened to Isis?
Now all we need is a UFO sighting by a decorated pilot..
FTA:"It launched an investigation after finding cut wires in a piece of computer equipment intended to transfer data from station sensors to the ground, the agency said." If the equipment was built by an outside contractor and the cut was inside it, well, maybe it was the contractor's employee. If it was in house, cut wires would show up. I think the prelaunch diagnostics would have found it anyway.
In the weeks before the successful relaunch of the STS program with STS-26, we in the UK had news broadcasts about deliberate sabotage to the O-rings of a forthcoming space shuttle launch (not STS-26 and probably not 27). Despite a suspect declaring her innocence on TV, we heard nothing more about it. Maybe this will go the same way?
My web domain.
It was the recorder used to fake the moon landings, it had to be destroyed by NASA itself. What the real story is, that some brave employee attempted to thwart the destruction of the proof of fake moon landings, but NASA turned the story around and tried to look like some unusual equipment sabotage.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Or follow the story here, complete with links to the source articles at Reuters, AP, etc.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Apparently the astronauts piggy-backed a of recording "My Lipgloss is poppin'" illegally.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
And the conspiracy theorists are off! With Poperatzo in the lead!
It's management trying to cover their tracks.
Table-ized A.I.
It was just damaged, probably someone dropped it and put it back in hoping nobody would notice.
Happens all the time! Although you would hope people would be more willing to own up to that kind of thing for anything life threatening.
I guess they never talk about the guy that dropped the o-rings while they were putting them on the shuttle, huh...
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Damn. I thought they were talking about a recorder. I was really hoping to see pictures of monkeys in space playing them. Whoever sabotaged the recorder must burn!
James Bond!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
RTFA: The unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the computer that is supposed to be delivered to the international space station by Endeavour, officials said.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Between the sabotage news, the drunk astronaut news, and the following, this is looking like a pretty bad day for spaceflight:
x plosion&btnG=Search+News
... According to KBAK-TV, the explosion took place at a Scaled Composites facility at the airport, but the TV station said they didn't know yet if any Scaled employees were among the casualties.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=mojave+e
http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2007/07/26/
According to local media reports, there has been a fatal explosion at a rocket test stand at Mojave Airport, home to a number of entrepreneurial space companies. Two people were killed and four people were injured. The company involved hasn't been identified; according to an amalgam of the sketchy reports available so far, it involved a nitrous oxide "flash explosion" on a test stand.
I'll bet we'll never hear the follow-up, other than that they'll find a scapegoat and put them away. But not every cut wire in the world is sabotage ... for all we know someone just pruned out an unused section of a wiring harness, or something. So it would be nice to hear what the effects were supposed to be before we get too excited about those evil bastards trying to save a few grams of weight on an expensive space flight.
I'm more of a Lacey Chabert guy myself.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Damn, I wish I had mod points tonight, you make an insightful comment. So much money, so much focus on terrorism when 10 of thousands die from more immediate causes like aids, cars, cancer, when talented professionals die because of political or managerial decision making.
sigh...
In the three drink minimum state I am in tonight I have moments when I ponder, do *We* deserve this existence, this blessing of life. Pyscho's want to blow me up because they love to kill, extremeists would love to put a collar around my neck and lead me to the "promised land", and some ass wipe sabotages some obscure system because why? Hell if we even know, but it became news and thus added to the anxiety of society.
sigh...
I ponder how we discovered the new world, asia, hell, even sailed beyond the horizon considering what *We* has become today.
Maybe more more glass of Merlot wont hurt tonight. Maybe NASA will still inspire me tomorrow.
Sigh...
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
The war on terror is a political war involving violence, not a shoot-em-up war involving armies (although they might be useful) It's the result of a small number of crazy people being able to control large populations through the use of stealth and violence. Because it's a political war, it gets more money than other stuff. Same reason AIDS research in the U.S. gets more money than heart disease, even though heart disease kills a lot more people. Politicians are supposed to make political threats go away. That's the way it's supposed to work. I now return you to your evening.
NASA is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has killed dozens of our best and brightest people through carelessness, malfeasance, and incompetence.
No, they've killed one and a half dozen astronauts through making mistakes, and if you use your head for something other than keeping your ears apart you'll realize that making mistakes is part of their mission. That's what exploration and research are all about. How the hell do you expect to learn anything new if you don't make mistakes? Did you learn to walk without skinning your knees? Did you learn to use the toilet without crapping in your pants once or twice? Does any complex program compile the first (or fifth) time through without error?
Or do you think using chemical bombs to accelerate people and tons of hardware to 4 or 5 miles per second up into a hard vacuum, with reusable craft, over and over again, with randomly shifting priorities set by a bunch of accountants and lawyers is a trivial task, the kind of thing any moron can get right the first time?
Apparently you haven't learned that the way to avoid any mistake is totally obvious in hindsight, but that, alas, this profound wisdom has yet to reduce the frequency with which human beings make mistakes. Go accomplish something new and remarkable in your life, count up the goofs you make along the way, and then come back with a little more wisdom and a little less clueless arrogance.
Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?
(two references for the price of one)
Were that I say, pancakes?
The same inspection also caught a failed AE-35 antenna control module, which was removed and replaced. The defective module was tested and found to be in perfect working order; NASA spokepeople point to human error as the cause of the problem.
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
Worst. Film. Ever. The friggin series was bad enough. I assume you're saying that only because you've successfully managed to wipe such gems as Highlander II and Battlefield Earth from your memory. I apologize for having undone that. But it was for your own good. Perspective is important... even if painful.
What are you doing, Dave?
What?
Nice troll.
You are so against NASA waisting lives? Then why not look to the Army (ie. all the armies of the world, wasting lives for profit mostly)?
And it is asinine to suggest that "customers of your spaceship flight can sue if they die"!!! You clearly DO NOT understand the motives of what NASA stands behind and what it is for. You do not understand what science and pushing frontiers means.
Finally, it is not important that some moron kills astronauts. What is important is that some moron can hold the entire human race back a number of years. A much more serious problem if you ask any astronaut or scientist. The intent is important. Incompetence can be mitigated.
"Worst. Film. Ever. The friggin series was bad enough."
If Matrix Reloaded, Episode II/III, and Third Space hadn't come out since, I'd agree with you.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
To quote Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at NASA, "There was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. That's not the way we operate here at NASA. We promote openness and we speak with the facts." He went on to say that, according to NASA policy, "the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel", also adding that "government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen." link. Maybe you shouldn't believe everything that you read in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Highlander II, what a joke! After finally being forced to watch Highlander I, I immediately questioned the possible existence of any sequels. And not just because the first one wasn't particularly good.
Is this a rhetorical question?
"At least in the private sector, the customers of your space ship flight can sue you if they die in a fireball because some dumbass was too eager to push the go stick or ignored the warnings of the low level engineers. But if it is NASA, you just get a weepy eyed president blabbering on and on, a handshake and a wreath of roses. Nobody gets fired. People just try to cover each others asses and save their jobs."
You're the type of dumbass that sprouts "accountability" and other MBA BS that drives company into the ground. Try reading "Fooled by Randomness". There's a great deal more randomness and unpredictability in our lives than we like to admit. For every great man that succeeds that's one hundred equally great men who failed because of circumstances. In space exploration and reaching into the unknown, this is even more true. Can your simple mind comprehend the incredible number of variables in this world?
I'm glad NASA doesn't go around blaming people, scape-goating them, and then burying it under the rug like the private sector. After each accident, NASA asks why and investigates before pointing fingers. Research into group think came out of the Challenger tragedy. Now we're more aware of how we fool ourselves into a sense of false security. Failure can come at all levels ranging from personal to institutional to circumstantial. Short sighted people like you can't see that. You're like those new CEOs that immediate layoff people when you hit a bad quarter, looking to scapegoat other people, without thinking about the long term consequences such as brain drain.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
There was no sequel to Highlander, because, as we all know, there can be only one!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I am glad you so firmly believe in the after-life. US courts, on the other hand, do not.
"I don't understand it, that was non-alcoholic champagne."
Gigli.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
There are certain things you never do in this world. Hold lit firecracker in your hand. Knock over a beehive. Watch news stories about celebrities who do things to be Media Attention Whores (MAWs).
But if there is anything that you never EVER do if you want to live, it is f*ck with a nerd's computer. If you f*ck with a NASA nerd's computer, you are dead where you stand.
Whoever this person is who has attempted to tamper with so much as a peice of recording equipment has attempted to tamper with an international construction project, possibly in an effort en expand the authoritative powers of the first world nations who are playing Chicken Little and shouting "The terrorists are coming. The sky is falling. Everybody panic!"
By compromising NASA's security, they have infringed upon the freedoms that they claim outsiders are taking from up when it is the people from within who can't keep their hands off of things they know they shouldn't be messing with.
NASA has had its share of scandels over the past year that are far more trivial compared to breaking into a laboratory owned by one of the most reviered organizations on the planet.
Even the sleeping giant gets bit on the hand by it's own dog. This dog has teeth, and tommarrow we will use them.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
One word.
LEVIATHAN
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Nah, He's just keeping them busy in the open till morning hits.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Oh come now, you're not even trying! Between Manos: The Hands Of Fate, Monster A Go-Go, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, MST3k has you all beat :-P
(And yes, I rather liked the Lost In Space film - certainly no worse than any Michael Bay stuff. Yes, this includes Transformers.)
Can't find examples of evolution? No matter, neither could Dawkins
I see your Battlefield Earth and raise you one Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Six sick
But Highlander won the Academy Award for best movie ever made!
'nuff said
Really? I hated it.
Is this a rhetorical question?
And all the events happened in real-time..
The above post was rude and thus modded "troll," but think about it for a second. What's more likely: a vast conspiracy to destroy the space station by sabotaging something non-life-threatening or someone with narcissistic or borderline personality disorder (or some sort of "Cluster B" personality disorder combination) who has difficulty relating to others and who decided to act out passive-aggressively by cutting some wires?
And let's be honest: how many technogeeks have you met in your life that are complete knee-biters?
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
> "NASA said today it is investigating suspected sabotage of a recorder placed on the shuttle
> Endeavour for delivery to the space station where it will track physical stresses on the orbiting lab."
The article continues:
"The worker, a man in his early 30s with long, platinum blond hair, is currently being held in a facility in Virginia. Sources report he was concerned about 'these kinds of men talking to your god for you', and had previously been a rising star in the President's 'Faith-Based Initiatives' program."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I, for one, agree that incompetence is running around. I have to work with an arrogant grad student in aerospace engineering that is destined for a GS-13 job at NASA. I'm not trolling, I work for a high profile aircraft design and analysis firm that often works with the local university, so I see this guy for the conman he is. Problem is the idiot isn't an engineer. He had ZERO engineering background prior to starting this masters degree, and every project he has undertaken as a grad student has failed. But he keeps getting good grades. He also didn't have to take most of the prerequisite classes, like structures and aerodynamics. And his thesis? Nobody has seen it, and the topic changes every week? Why? Because he's full of crap. Even today, he is helping load the moving truck to go to his fantastic job at NASA, and he hasn't even defended his thesis. Never mind that the job supposedly is contingent upon him actually passing. It sickens me to think that this guy is going to receive gobs of money to work with things he doesn't understand with the potential to cause harm to people.
I used to love NASA, and I always kept a meatball sticker on my car. But after seeing how connections trump incompetence and the threat to people's safety, I am sorely disappointed in NASA.
well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What the hell does aerodynamics have to to with a GS-13 position? do you know what a GS-13 Does?
No, I thought not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But was the saboteur wearing diapers? That's all I care about.
Deserve? DESERVE?!?
Nobody, no species, deserves anything. They carve out what they can to strive forward. No more, no less
Human are a fantastic species!
We mold stone, make steel, build glass buildings that touch the sky!
We can get from one major city to another major city, ANYWHERE in the world, in a day. We have machines that can explore the ocean depths, we've sent men to the moon and brought them back safely, we sent machines out side our solar system, found planets orbiting distant stars, Are are starting to understand the very fabric of reality.
We FUCKING RULE!
Yeah, a small percentage of people are assholes. But even still we still keep moving.
SO enjoy your wine, but stop with your whine and look around. Then find something that helps us keep moving.
There is no moving forward, there is no moving backwards, there is only striving towards goals.
Everyday reach, set goal a little higher then you think you can do. Move, play enjoy. Even death isn't a certainty(although it is a strong probability!)
I leave you with one question:
What are you going to do to inspire others?
Tick-Tock, another second lost.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nope, Battle Field earth is worse.
A) It had a potential it didn't even come close to fulfilling,
B) Manos never tried to pretend it was good.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Two words: Ice Pirates.
Five words: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
I developed what I humbly call the "Sean Connery Principle" specifically for H2. I found that the movie wasn't unwatchable while Sean Connery was on screen, but as soon as his character left, I couldn't believe I'd sat through the whole thing.
I must be a terrible power to have, to get the audience to ignore the awfulness of a movie.
Personally, I rate movies by how little I check my watch during them, but maybe that's just me.
Yes, I am quite aware. GS-13 is a pay grade. Did you know that?
"What are you going to do to inspire others?
Tick-Tock, another second lost."
I just did. I inspired you to comment. As to beyond that, I have my moments when I inspire just as I am inspired by others. Amazing perspective you have. Similar to the wine I had last night, A little pretentious, but with softer atfer tones and just a hint of sass.
Life, it is to be enjoyed!
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
I used to teach the Behavioral Emergency module in addition to ACLS and airway maintenance. "Cluster B" is also known as the "Drama Queens," and thus disproportionately represented in the patients seen in emergency rooms.
And, after working with a few histrions, a supervisor with a gaping narcissistic wound, and a trainee who was a classic example of borderline personality disorder, it's a little hard to forget the basic definitions. Yes, my copy of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual is III-R. Some things just haven't changed that much.
"Anyway, it was a muslim. So much for your theory"
Uh...yeah. Sure.
[Shrugs, walks away, reminding self that arguing with drunks or the intellectually stunted never works and just leads to frustration.]
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
It had potential? Obviously you never read the book. It was too crappy to even be camp.
I mean, they haven't found the person who did it, so far all they know, the damage could have simply been caused by gross negligence or incompetence.
The fact that there's a serious lack of motive for this sort of sabotage suggests that this possibility may merit consideration.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'