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Space Shuttle Secrets Stolen For China
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Department of Justice has announced the indictment of former Boeing engineer Dongfan Chung on charges of economic espionage in the theft of company trade secrets relating to the Space Shuttle, the C-17 military transport aircraft, and the Delta IV rocket. Chung is a native of China and a naturalized US citizen. According to the indictment, Chinese aviation industry representatives began sending Chung 'tasking' letters as early as 1979. Over the years, the letters directed Chung to collect specific technological information, including data related to the Space Shuttle and various military and civilian aircraft. Chung allegedly responded in one letter indicating a desire to contribute to the 'motherland,' the DOJ said. It was not immediately clear how much, if any, damage the alleged espionage did to US national security but DOJ officials said the cases reflect the determination of the Chinese government to penetrate US intelligence and obtain vital national defense secrets. 'Today's prosecution demonstrates that foreign spying remains a serious threat in the post-Cold War world,' said Kenneth L. Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for National Security"
too much privatization, and not enough oversight
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
because China is our enemy. Our leaders are just too stupid (or getting too rich from good "relations" with them) to realize it.
Um ... perhaps that's because they're the ones doing it. I mean, that's what enemies do. I hope you don't consider China to be a U.S. ally, because they're not and never will be so long as their government is what it is. They don't even qualify as neutral, given the effect they're having on our economy and their ongoing pillage of the U.S. economy and education system.
Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are. It's a bit more difficult in our case, since we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Because the Israelis are our friends. Espionage from Israel doesn't count.
Nah ... you only need engineers when you're planning on building and manufacturing things. We're a "service economy" now, haven't you heard. Of course, to some that's pretty much synonymous with "third world economy".
Just give it time. We'll get there.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And hopefully the Chinese will now go off and waste 30 years on it like we did.
Advice: on VPS providers
Nonsense. Nobody says that they have to copy the design intact. Whatever problems the Shuttle may be as a complete system, the fact is that there's decades of useful R&D in the underlying technologies that make it work, and that's incredibly valuable stuff any foreign power wanting a leg up into space. Hell, the materials science alone would be worthwhile. The software, too, while it runs on archaic S360 equipment is also pretty remarkable for what it does, and you can bet your bottom dollar the Chinese would love to get their hands on it. Any step we took, any research we did, and knowledge we have that advances the Chinese space development timetable is worth keeping to ourselves.
Never let the enemy have anything for free.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
While your signature already indicates your bias, might I ask you if you had considered the idea that Americans are being shut out simply because they don't work as hard as some of these Chinese students?
Since your evidence is entirely anecdotal, allow me to give an anecdote of my own (ie: one that was not passed onto me by a friend): I finished college 2 years ago and during my 4 years there the Chinese, Japanese and Korean students (1st or 2nd generation) were the ones who were consistently at the top of their classes in fields like math, engineering, science, etc.
Why is that?
In my experience it's the direct result of them spending their free time studying these subjects while the typical American student is taking bong rips or having sex.
Americans value the college experience for its education and social worth (bong rips and sex) while people from Asian cultures value college solely as a learning experience. They aren't there to have fun.
(Yes, these are generalizations and are based on personally experienced anecdotes, but none of what I said here was any more biased than the parent.)
Even ignoring all that, it's still 1970s technology.
Yeesh, this canard again. Look, when we really think about it, don't you think it's only an occasionally useful rule of thumb that the age of a technology has some correlation to its quality and cleverness? Why should it? Is it really reasonable to assume that every technological problem has an infinite number of solutions, which will always be discovered in ascending order of cleverness?
I mean, do we argue that astronauts shouldn't use ball-point pens in orbit because that's 1960s technology, and surely there must be something better now? That they shouldn't use handkerchiefs to blow their nose because that's 16th century technology? NASA shouldn't use wheels on the design of a moon rover because wheels were invented 5000 years ago? They should use something other than calculus to calculate orbits because it was invented in the 1620s and hasn't changed a bit since? Sometimes the best solution to a problem is an old and well-known one. Newer isn't automatically better.
It seems to me that the Space Shuttle was designed at the end of the golden age of rocketry: in the 50s and 60s clever youngsters went into aerospace the way they went into computers and the Internet in the 80s and 90s. It was exciting, it was way out on the frontier, and it paid decently. NASA and their contractors collected most of the best, and they did pretty impressive engineering work. Yes, they didn't have some of the fancy electronics parts their descendants have now, but avionics is only part of the spacecraft -- and when you're talking about a spacecraft that has to survive two very high-energy events (launch and re-entry) -- the quality and coolness of the avionics is probably not the key criterion for design success. Something like airframe design, system robustness, and a canny use of materials is probably way more important.
Since the 1980s, however, aerospace engineering talent in the US has aged and shrunk, and far fewer of the best and brightest go into the field. Furthermore, the excitement and potential glory of a real frontier-type mission is missing. Designing reliable electric bus connectors for solar-power panels on the ISS isn't quite the same as trying to squeeze an extra 5 ounces out of the weight of the first manned Mars lander. It doesn't attract the very best young talent.
So it may very well be that the "1970s technology" design of the SS is as good or better than what could be done today, avionics aside. Certainly the difficulty which private aerospace has had recently in trying to duplicate, essentially, the circa 1965 Saturn 1B medium-lift launch vehicle should make one pause thoughtfully before concluding that it's just a piece of cake to design a combination heavy-lift vehicle and re-usable manned spaceplane seating 10 that leaves the SS in the dust. I mean, if it were easy to do better -- wouldn't someone have done so, already? It's not like there isn't a fortune to be made by the first organization that can get 50 tons of cargo and a crew of 10 to LEO for 10% of the price of a SS launch.
With another Clinton in the White House the Chinese will be able to just ask for what they want.
Thanks Bill and
Loral Corp.
Hope you both burn in hell.
SueSue
Based upon my personal experience teaching (and like hell I'm going to post non-anonymously) Chinese students are not particularly brighter than anybody else - where they stand out is in gaming the system. The myth of the "amazingly smart chinese student" arose before we all understood just how seriously they take this.
They will focus like maniacs on getting every little edge they can to get a few points up (cheating very much included). Once you try to test them to see if they actually *understand* anything, they fall apart pretty rapidly and quite often are well behind other members of the class - when this happens they will often jump straight into the "me no understand the english so well" routine, which is just another game.
I have met some extremely bright Chinese students, but in no higher proportion than from any other group.
Polygraphs are done for a wide range of reasons--even city police dispatchers from CA to NC get them...as to the feds, they are ridiculously anal. Even _non-sensitive_ internships and volunteer work with federal agencies have to deal with a full FBI background, reference and credit checks--Just for being in the building. And being in a sensitive position (not secret or top secret) requires full medical disclosure of all records and a more thorough FBI check and interviews (sometimes a polygraph).
There are two or three different overall investigation programs at the federal level for security procedures, perhaps some of them are more lax (or enlightened), but I doubt polygraph is avoided for the cost. If anything, it probably produces false positives that single out minorities: "Have you ever done anything that might be considered amoral?" Right after sex practice questions. Asked to a lesbian police applicant. They told her she did "bad" on the test, made her take it three times, in an unventilated room. Noone bothered to explain to her that social anxiety and leading questions were probably impacting the results...
However ... I do see a few probl... err ... I mean of course "Opportunities" here.
The first one being the opportunity to convince management in the US to pay engineers and scientists more and/or MBA's less.
The second one would be to convince them to stop seeing the engineering and R&D departments as regrettable cost centers to be outsourced and/or off-shored at the first opportunity.
The third opportunity would be to convince industry to offer Ph.D's opportunities (and to some extent academic entry-level positions) that make it less of a financial risk to do a Ph.D.
Prospects for Ph.D's (depending on discipline of course) can be so awful that you have to basically tell students: "Don't do a Ph.D. unless you (a) really derive fulfillment from doing research / teaching even if you're paid half to 1/3 of what you'd get in industry and (b) you are in the top 5% of your class, or you won't be able to get tenured".
Well ... industrial espionage is part of doing business. Between companies as much as between countries. Besides, trade is a two-way street. It's not as if the US are providing China with development aid. The US are benefiting from cheap Chinese products too. Have you ever considered what the impact on the US would be if there were to be say, 30% import tariffs on Chinese goods?
All those PC's, printers, T-shirts, hand tools, shoes, toys, and what not? First you'd kick off a vicious round of inflation if you did ... plus you'd be seriously hurting the bottom line of such all-American companies that have off-shored their manufactoring operations to China (just think of HP).
Generally speaking, you'd saddle lots of US companies with higher costs which would make them vulnerable in the current economic downturn *and* make them less competitive with e.g. EU-based companies.
Sure ... it would hurt China. They might even have riots. But it would hurt the US too. Very much so I'd say. So let's just be very sure about the cost-benefit ratio of such measures before we seriously propose them, ok? Like it or not, the US is as much networked into the global economy as China, the EU, and OPEC.
It's not to say that the US can't rescind China's "most favoured nation" state. Of course it can! The question is: what are the costs and what are the benefits. And I submit that the costs just might be a bit steep for the satisfaction of making our displeasure about industrial espionage known.