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."

Comments

Recorder sabotaged

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone tried to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but discovered that one of the holes was blocked.

Dr Smith

[hedley]

Dr Smith works for a subcontractor now? That Jupiter2 gig must have finished.

Re:Dr Smith

[Improv]

Congrats! You just beat out every sufficiently old geek who wanted to make that joke :)

Re:Dr Smith

[ScentCone]

Dr Smith works for a subcontractor now? That Jupiter2 gig must have finished.

Not only that, but his even newer job at Scaled Composites doesn't seem to have worked out, either . Not to joke, though. Looks like some people died today out in the Mojave at that facility.

Vague

[Joebert]

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.

Mothers Against Drunk Astronauts

[Anonymous Coward]

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?!?

Re:Mothers Against Drunk Astronauts

[Bishop Ebonhand]

My GF just walked into the room and asked what I was reading. after explaining the sabotage and intoxication scandal, she replied with "can you blame them for flying drunk? hell, they can't even be sure the equipment will even work. Hell, I'd want to be drunk too" superior logic prevails..

A better article

[l33t.g33k]

Here everybody, this one has much more info: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/26/nasa.computers.re ut/

Re:A better article

[emjoi_gently]

Actually, It doesn't say much more.

"The U.S. space agency NASA on Thursday confirmed it had discovered the apparent sabotage of a noncritical component of the international space station due to be carried up by the space shuttle Endeavour. 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."

That's about it on the topic.

It still has the feeling of "Wha? I don't get it.". Either NASA is deliberately playing down a more serious issue, or we have some very incompetent saboteurs. Or an employee who had a momentary temper tantrum at whatever piece of equipment was in front of them.

Re:Was is really sabotage?

[Nyeerrmm]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_re_us/sp ace_sabotage
According to that article the work also got the backup/ground test model (not sure what is, just that it wasn't flight hardware). Definitely not an accident

Re:Our fine government employees

[v1]

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.

Other news: Fatal explosion at Mojave Airport

[FleaPlus]

Between the sabotage news, the drunk astronaut news, and the following, this is looking like a pretty bad day for spaceflight:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=mojave+ex plosion&btnG=Search+News
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. ... 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.

Re:Other news: Fatal explosion at Mojave Airport

[DynaSoar]

As far as I can see, Scaled Composites and Xcor are the only tenants at Mojave using nitrous. SC in the HTPB hybrid from SpaceDev http://www.astronautix.com/engines/spaybrid.htm , and Xcor in its 15 and 50 Lbf motors http://www.xcor.com/products/engines/2P1_N2O_ethan e_rocket_engine.html . The latter wouldn't need a truck load of the stuff. SpaceDev is working on a lot more hybrid projects than just SC's, but their test own stand is at Capistrano. SC is both secretive about its running projects and notoriously bad about updating it web sites about what it does announce, but by now they should be ramping up for testing the motor for SS2.

This certainly throws a wrench into the "hybrids are so much safer" works. Very bad for the two dead and four hurt, I'm just hoping Rutan wasn't among them.

Boy are you an idiot

[Quadraginta]

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.

Re:Boy are you an idiot

[Repton]

While I agree with you that you need to accept some mistakes, NASA's bureaucracy has not been faultless. I encourage you to read Richard Feynman's report on the Challenger disaster.

Sample quote:

Engineers at Rocketdyne, the manufacturer, estimate the total probability [of mission failure] as 1/10,000. Engineers at Marshal estimate it as 1/300, while NASA management, to whom these engineers report, claims it is 1/100,000. An independent engineer consulting for NASA thought 1 or 2 per 100 a reasonable estimate.

Re:Pardon me while I throw up a little in my mouth

[_Sprocket_]

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.

Re:Pardon me while I throw up a little in my mouth

[sconeu]

There was no sequel to Highlander, because, as we all know, there can be only one!!!

Official NASA statement to drunk astronauts:

[paranoid123]

"I don't understand it, that was non-alcoholic champagne."