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How an Intern Stole NASA's Moon Rocks
schwit1 submitted a story telling the strange tale of how in 2002, rogue NASA interns stole millions of dollars in moon rocks from a building designed not to let that happen. I'd suggest taking the whole thing with a little bit of salt.
Haven't read TFA yet, but the general story is true. I worked at JSC and knew Shae.
The samples were in a floor safe that they rolled out of the building on a dolly. The sting was set up as if a Belgian rockhound wanted to buy some of the samples, and they agreed to meet in Florida. The 3 other interns crossed state lines for the sting. Shae stayed in TX that weekend to attend scuba classes.
I particularly like the bit where the interns in question laid the moonrocks down and a mattress and screwed on top of them, thereby making the contamination of the spent samples even worse. Made me wonder who was on the bottom.
Seriously, though, the thing read like a synopsis of a bad TV movie. It may or may not be true, but it's telling that the perp has a book coming out that is an 'augmented' account of the heist, that the author of the linked piece is summarizing what was told him by the perp.
IOW, don't take it with a grain of salt. Kill it with Na fire.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Not only is it somewhat painful to read, as far as I can tell it is mostly fiction, no fact checking at all. And it also seems partially plagiarized from this article:
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-moonrocks23jun06,1,1392690.story?coll=la-home-magazine
And that one is by an actual reporter with actual fact checking. Obviously some of it is left up to how the perpetrators described it, but it doesn't have stupid made up stuff like a nitrogen filled lab and thermal suits and such. I would guess the crime played out more like the LA Times article, rather than this embellished piece of pulp fiction
I'm not sure why they choose people like this for cool internships. It sounds like the kind of guy that had good grades in college and all kinds of extracurricular activities, but not the kind of guy you'd actually choose as an intern!
Obviously I don't know anything besides the ridiculous, surely augmented account of TFA, which I did read. But I simply don't understand how people like that get internships, while people like me and others I know have a hard time. We don't have 4.0s and tons of extracurricular activities, but as any science nerd will tell you (and which I hope scientists and researchers at NASA know as well - maybe the blame for selecting people like that lies with HR), that's not what you should look for when you need a science/nerd intern!
"The samples they took were from every Apollo mission, ever. Sometime between the heist and its resolution, Tiffany and Thad arranged the moon rocks on a bed--and had sex amongst them."
Talk about getting your rocks off....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Can be found here.
My father used to work for ILC-DDC, a chip manufacturer out on Long Island. Some of their chips went to use with NASA. As I recall it, years ago, we children were given a tour on a "factory open to families" day, and they had a NASA space suit on display in the hallway. Well, it turns out that (1) this suit had been on the moon, (2) this suit hadn't been cleaned properly, and (3) NASA eventually recalled the suit to have any errant moon dust sucked out of it, and never let them have the suit again. At least, that's the story I was told.
My point exactly. "I just stolen several million dollars worth of moon rocks... what do I do with them now? I know! I'll sell them on eBay! They'll never think to look for them there!" Not exactly the thought processes of a genius. More like something out of a Three Stooges movie. And yes, most of the Mission Impossible stuff is bullshit, although I do believe they got an ex-employee to give them access codes.
I once worked at a USAF AWACS station, where the regulations said I was not allowed in the radome without an escort, since my security clearance was still pending. My first day there, one of my coworkers said "Here's the keycode to the door. Behave yourself." At other jobs, I've been able to access computer accounts I was not supposed to be in because the administrators made the passwords so complicated that their subordinates simply wrote them down and stuck them in their desk drawers. The point is, anybody who has dealt with bureaucratic bullshit long enough is perfectly willing to bend the rules to help their coworkers actually do their job. These interns got help from lots of people who assumed they were just doing their job. Needless to say, none of them is going to volunteer a "Oh yeah, I helped these kids get in" after the fact.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Because smart and dumb are not always or never qualities. In this case, the thrill-seeking aspect of his personality meant that the smarts were dedicated to achieving difficult but spectacularly stupid accomplishments.
is probably completely bogus. As was clearly shown on Mythbusters, neoprene (even thicker than the mentioned 2mm) simply does not work against thermal sensors.
Also: "... and by paying careful attention to the absorption of the powder it is possible to tell which finger came down first and so forth."
Maybe... if you are talking about a key that was pressed twice. Otherwise, forget it.
Yeah. About a teaspoon of salt. One grain for each embellishment.
This is true in all sports - and makes sense when you think about it. The primary function of the league is to generate income. Anything that gets in the way of that is counter to the reason they exist.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Well, you could easily put a price on the cost of getting moon rocks, I mean, the whole trip to the moon, landing and taking off and getting back on earth thing isn't cheap. Sure they brought a lot of it back, but if you priced it out, it would've been quite expensive per unit of mass. If we just consider Apollo, and how much the entire program cost, and divide by the amount of moon rocks, it won't take much rock to reach millions.
After all, it's not like you can find real lunar regolith on Earth. And it's not like a common person with an interest in space can easily go and buy some from NASA.
There really is a big difference between being 'book smart' and 'street smart'. I mean seriously. What did they think was going to happen when they put an ad online claiming that they have moon rocks for sale right after NASA's supply went missing?
The proper thing to have done (outside of not pulling this stupid heist in the first place, or course) would have been to flee to another country in the eastern hemisphere and sold them there, making enough money in the process to never have to come back to the US again.
As the seconds crept onward, Thad continued to struggle with the code, so he quickly moved to plan B, which involved unbolting the heavy safe from the ground, loading it on to a small dolly and carting it back out to the car. It wasn't easy, but within the remaining time allotted to them, the two managed to slip out of the vault,
In less than three minutes they unbolted a heavy safe from the floor and hoisted it onto a small dolly. No doubt they had a couple of big wrenches, plenty of WD-40, and maybe even some paint stripper, in case there was an annoying coat of enamel on the bolts. Bad TV yet again.
yeah yeah this isn't fark, but how often do we get cute female cat burglars to ogle at?
http://www.baylor.edu/biology/index.php?id=32089 /would hit it
What BS. The other night they "proved" that Robin Hood couldn't have split an arrow with another arrow by using cheap factory-made lathe-turned arrows with grain running every-which-way. Since every arrow hit broke following the irregular grain near the nock they decided that NO ONE EVER could have split an arrow. I've actually seen a hand-made straight-grained arrow that had been split from nock to head, with the other arrow still embedded, so I know for a fact that their show was BS.
Even worse was the show where they tried to debunk the story of someone mounting a RATO (Rocket Assisted Take Off) bottle to their old Chevy Impala back in the 60s (when you could buy them surplus from the Air Force). Not having access to an actual JATO bottle, and too lazy and cheap to examine the actual plans and make a replica, the bozos cobbled together some POS rocket that probably didn't have enough thrust to get itself off the ground and put it on a car instead. Not surprisingly it failed, and now thousands of people believe that the story has been debunked.
I certainly don't object to the IDEA of their program, in fact I think it's a great idea. I just wish that they had hired someone who could actually do it RIGHT.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I don't know, it's probably literally closer to "priceless", which isn't infinitely valuable, but a market can't be established, therefore a value/price cannot be determined (see the description of "Neoclassical Value" on the Wikipedia link, lots of artwork is priceless in this sense, even though it sells for a specific value).
What you're describing is the cost, not the price or value. If I blew $100K on rebuilding a fully restored mint condition Ford Fiesta from 1994, doesn't mean that I could sell it for that, or that it represented the value. It means I blew $100K, and now had a car that is probably worth 1/10th at best. That's just a guess.
Even if you were going to present it that way, it's not like the rocks are the only thing that came out of that money. So if you want to determine if it was "worth it", or "profitable" to go to the moon, the rocks aren't the only thing of value to come out of all that money being spent.
Kirby
I do not disagree with you in general; I have often had the same feeling about their shows. And I did not use the words "prove" or "disprove".
However, the section they did about heat sensors was pretty definitive. They had automatic heat sensors as well as infrared cameras. When they put on heavy wetsuits (thicker than the 2mm mentioned in TFA), and quickly entered the room (so the suits would not have time to heat up), their heat signatures were still clearly visible on the infrared camera, and they were unable to fool the automatic infrared detectors. However, later they did find at least 2 ways to fool the sensors that were surprisingly simple. But the wetsuits were a very obvious failure.
I also agree about the rocket-assisted car. They mounted the rockets on the roof, rather than at the rear, and angled them upward in a way that would prevent the car from getting airborne... what kind of test of the myth is that? (It should be noted, however, that the local police and State Patrol in the area the actual incident was supposed to have taken place, deny it completely and have no records of the event. If it really had happened, and I were a local, I would turn it into a museum dedicated to stupidity.)
I question the methodologies used by Mythbusters a lot of the time. And I happen to agree about the Robin Hood bit too. I have split arrows myself. Not the full length, and never on purpose, but it does happen. Maybe carbon fiber arrows split more readily than wood... but it just goes to show how many variables there are. And I think they could have done a great many others better, too. But this particular section (about fooling heat sensors) was well-done and very convincing. And somewhat surprising.
OK.. for starters, the arrow thing. You never said you saw the arrow being split, just that you saw a "split" arrow. I could go in my shop and make one for you in about 5 minutes. They did test with cheap arrows at first, then went and found straight grain arrows to test with again. They proved that its nearly impossible to split an arrow unless it's made of bamboo. You probably missed that part while you were getting a beer.. again. This was debunked strictly because they were unable to replicate the myth, and were unable to find any evidence that this had actually happened, anywhere.
The rocket car.. The air force has never sold working RATO/JATO engines to anyone. Ever. They confirmed this. The FIRST time they tried it, the rockets they used were 3 hobby engines chained to produce the same thrust as a RATO engine. They brought in rocket experts to do the math. Now, if your talking about the SECOND time they tried it, they did have a single engine custom made for them to JATO specs by a rocket manufacturer. It was not cobbled together. It exploded on launch due to some defect in the fuel pack. They debunked the car myth because no one has any evidence the original event ever happened. No police reports, no death or missing person reports, no missing RATOs.. nothing. not a singed hair or crushed tire to be found besides the text on your computer screen.
Now, yes, I will say that occasional I do yell at the TV when they are doing something plainly wrong, but I do think that most of their effort is reasonable. Next time try watching more than ten minutes of an episode before you launch into bald faced inaccuracies, you twit. penis.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Well, I have seen one being split.
They were unable to find evidence because their researchers are lazy. Here, in just a few minutes, you've heard from two people who've seen arrows split. Visit archery forums and you'll find hundreds more.
Which is typical of the Mythbusters - when their lazy and half ass methods fail to replicate a myth, they pronounced it busted and move on. And ignorant jackasses like yourself then propagate their claims.
Thank you so much for your post. I thought I was the only geek that saw through the bullshit that is Mythbusters!
A quick search on YouTube for "split arrow" debunks their claim of it not being possible to pull off the "Robin Hood" shot. They sure didn't try very hard.
I have yet to see an episode of Mythbusters where I didn't have a major problem with their methodology.
It makes me sad that so many people think these guys are applying scientific rigor. They are doing a great disservice to geeks everywhere.
Knowledge != Intelligence