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Space Shuttle Spy Gets 15 Years
goG writes "A Chinese-born engineer was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for hoarding sensitive information about the US space shuttle with the intent of giving it to China. US District Judge Cormac Carney called Chung's crimes a matter of national security, saying he had committed a breach against the trust Boeing and the country had placed in him. Attorney Greg Staples said, 'The [People's Republic of China] is bent on stealing sensitive information from the United States and shows no sign of relenting. Only strong sentences offer any hope of dissuading others from helping the PRC get that technology.' Staples also 'noted in sentencing papers that Chung amassed a personal wealth of more than $3 million US while betraying his adopted country.'"
If only the shuttle was run by Google, they'd have a better chance of gaining access...
You can't trust the Chinese.
Send him to Gitmo, then death penalty. No New York trials. He's a spy, stealing information that can be used against us. When are we going to acknowledge that we are at (cyber) war with China, have been for years, and start acting accordingly?
Letting China waste billions of dollars building one of those money sinks, plus $700 million per launch, would probably be the worst thing we could do to them.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
He's 74 years old, he'll never see the end of this sentence. He lived what appears to be a good life living in the country he was betraying (about 3M worth of good life from TFA). His nursing home arrangements are less than desirable but he'll still have better care than many seniors in this country.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
fleet of Burans, that should keep them busy for the next decade.
It might even give us a chance to roll out a new heavy launcher before the rest of the planet :(
Wherever You Go, There You Are
If its the current one in use don't see the problem really, all the tech in it is like what 20 years old?
In my opinion it would be a better for everyone if public-funded research bodies like NASA( and the equivalent in every other country) made their non defense-related information freely available to all anyway.
China won't consider 15 years a strong sentence when they're happy to execute people left right and centre.
The thing is, they may have let them do this. I had a couple of inside sources at JPL while this was all being discovered, and the info he got, might have gotten the Chinese pointed down the wrong direciton.
LOL! captcha is rubbers
How sensitive can that technology be when we're retiring the space shuttle soon and have no replacements past the drawing board stage?
...but I've known quite a few Chinese Americans, both from the mainland and from Taiwan, who despite having become citizens here seem to be more concerned about their former homeland than their new one. I remember when the American spy plane had the collision with the Chinese fighter jet in 2001, almost every Chinese person I knew, despite being US citizens, was adamant that the US should apologize. During the Tibet unrest, many Chinese Americans I know accused the US media of bias--begging the question why they care so much about how China is portrayed if they're now Americans. Maybe this is no different than past waves of immigrants, and maybe it's no different than some Jewish Americans (even born here) who show more support for Israel than they do for the US. It's also no different than Muslim immigrants to Europe who show more allegiance to their religion and the ummah than their adopted nations. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see if anyone else had any thoughts or experiences in this matter. In short, in today's world, what are the real loyalties of an immigrant population? This story obviously shows one--money--but the question is whether there's anything beyond that.
In many countries spying results in the death penalty, why not in this case? Spying is a grevious crime against one's country and has been handled by the death penalty across countless cultures since before recorded history. For that matter, if your in a position of trust (vs just sneaking around) than it isn't spying, but treason. With a sentence of 15 years we appear to be weak, not strong from the eyes of someone who could consider the crime.
Certainly a spy that was caught by China would receive the death penalty, so nothing new there. Nothing against the Chinese (vs another nationality), but this business of pandering to foreign governments that spy against us has got to end.
I say let him go and let China do something with the plans if they so wish. Its not as if the shuttle program is continuing after this last flight or that NASA is going to do anything useful with the plans, other than let them gather dust or get lost. They don't have much of a budget anymore to even create a suitable replacement at this point. As a fan of the shuttle (despite the cost issues), it would be nice to see someone wasting their money on keeping the dream alive.
I know this is probably not a popular viewpoint in the USA, but I just want someone to get us to the moon again, somehow in my lifetime.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Judge Carney is being very short sighted if he expects that this "strong sentence" will dissuade people from stealing technology and giving it to China. I would be less likely to want to steal secrets from the Chinese Government because, if caught, I could be tortured and subject to unthinkable brutality. Note that this is not a suggestion that we implement torture. But another slashdotter noted that Chung's retirement in Federal Prison will give him better healthcare options than many Americans that have been good, law-abiding citizens will have access to. And, these Americans have worked hard for all of their lives. Honestly, a better punishment would be to strip Chung of his citizenship and deport him to China and finally to sanction the Chinese Government.
It's interesting that as much as we Americans deride the terrible space shuttle, only the Russians were able to build anything like it, but only the Americans were ever able to operate one.
Kinda makes you wonder, that, if we are not going back to the moon, can we at least keep these shuttles flying, or gasp, build a more modern one. I mean, the whole point of the new NASA way is to perfect in orbit assembly, and it seems we're kinda doing that now with the space shuttle and...
maybe we just need to make a new space shuttle that can be boosted farther into deep space, if we need to.
This is my sig.
Am I the only one who thinks the $3M remark is a red herring?
Treason is treason regardless of how much money you make doing it. He should swing for this, treason still has the death penalty.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
The Chinese government wants to promote their own agenda. Let them do so using their own advances, not by stealing the advances built by cultures which actually encourage advance.
Let the culture which reveres "ancient wisdom" prove its value by using feng shui to launch their space vehicles.
A Chinese-born engineer was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for hoarding sensitive information aboard the US space shuttle with the intent of giving it to China.
I heard on the radio that after the final shuttle mission NASA will be selling off the shuttles. Why try to smuggle out the information when you can just buy the shuttle outright and reverse engineer the entire thing in your own country?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
A funny thing happened in the 60's during the development of Concorde, the USSR was of course spying on the Europeans as they were also workin gon their supersonic Tupolev. One of the (numerous) big issues was that of the rubber with which to make the tyres, as it had to be solid enough to resist the speed and whatnot. In a documentary from 99, one of the European engineers said they had noticed spies collecting material on runways after tests, so they created a sort of unusable goo and pasted it on the runways for them to collect. He said he'd have given anything to see the Russians' faces while trying to make sense of the stuff to create tyres with it...
Ahh nothing gets a people's mind off their own corruption and failing nation like a good old fashion cold war.
People are easily united against a common foe.
Nothing like calling up China and saying, "Hey that Cold War thing with Russia was real good for the economy. Wanna play the bad guy for a generation or two?"
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
AFAIU US is not going to build more of them. Let it replicate by the chinese, they can test i a few times and when it find you buy it back for 1/4 of the price it cost you to build it in the US. Works for iphones, thinkpads, should also work for shuttles. Even better: Develop the next generation together with china.
If it'll help launch a new space race, I'm almost for letting them have it all.
I want to see the Chinese do something completely wild, like launch an 180-day orbit mission to Mars or something, completely blowing away anyone's expectations of what they're able to do, a la 2010.
That'll restart the space race.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
lol wut
You see, generally when you borrow money there's some sort of agreement as to how it's paid back. for example, when you borrow money to pay for college or a car loan the bank doesn't have the right to send someone into your house in the middle of the night to take your wedding tape or private letters. If that happened, you'd be well within your right to shoot that person in your house. Likewise with spies.
If he were an American using torrents to distribute those plans he'd have gotten 20 years instead, but only because the MPAA would have sued him instead claiming the shuttles were used in several movie scenes.
This is a real question:
Was there any proof for the allegations?
All I could take from the article was that he took lots of material home. I do not read anything about a proof for giving the information to China, or receiving money for it for that matter.
We don't borrow money from China.
We offer bonds with very low interest rates on an open market... one of the largest buyers of these bonds is the PRC.
Owning a bond, or several billion of them, does not entitle you to anything but the agreed upon terms set when you purchased the bond.
If you buy stock in a company and those shares don't come with voting rights, you can conceivably own a majority of the company's wealth and still have ZERO power over the company. For example, Google has shares that are given 10 votes per share, owned mostly by the founders of the company. If any single entity owned every share other than those 10 vote shares, they still are not entitled to control the company.
Finally, national debt isn't a debt in a traditional sense. Bonds are issued against wealth that is not liquid in order to use that wealth to promote further growth. People pull out equity on their homes to make improvements all of the time... their net worth can actually increase even though they actually owe the bank more money. The fact that the US is considered to have so much value that we can issue bonds to the tune of Trillions at 0 interest goes to show that our nation is doing VERY well financially, we haven't even begun to over extend ourselves. True, at some point we will have to repay the bonds, but the hope is that when we do, our nation will be worth more than before due to the investments made with the cash we received from their sale. To repay, we just sell more bonds.
Any 2nd year business major can tell you that a corporation that doesn't leverage its assets in order to gain capital for further investments is a corporation that is poorly run. Corporations cannot operate on revenue alone, they need to sell stock or take out loans against the value of the company in order to capitalize their growth. Thats what the US does, and should be doing. Part of me would love to see just how much cash we could rake in if we tried... can you imagine how it would effect the value of our nation if we instantly doubled our investment in education, research, and infrastructure. Those are investments that we should be making and the way to do it is to leverage our worth.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
We should just sell the entire shuttle program to the highest bidder (the Chinese), including all the equipment and documents.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If the Chinese knockoff space shuttle is anything like the Rolex I bought in Tian Jin, then there's really nothing to see here. It will stop working as soon as it gets a little rain on it.
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
it is only entrapment if he was forced to commit the crime. Otherwise the u.s. govt may have been collecting evidence, doesn't make a big difference if it was incorrect info or not. If he thought the info was real and gave it away it still is a crime.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
love your country always, your government when it deserves it. simply as that.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
So you're going to bust a guy for buying a bag of oregano?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Why is anything about the Space Shuttle secret in any case? Space projects should be open to the public and there shouldn't be any secrets. If the technology is secret the human species won't get much utility out of that huge spending.
Too bad that the use of spies is not at all part of Chinese "ancient wisdom."
"Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results."
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War. (6th century BC)
if he was trying to buy pot from someone who was supposed to be selling him pot, then sure. Nothing against pot, but he was attempting to break a law. it doesn't make him any less guilty for doing it poorly.
I isn't really possible to "steer" the shuttle, except to a very limited extent by the OMS, and you mostly use those for reentry. The external tank is emptied out by the launch and then jettisoned. This is why there are launch windows when the shuttle is launched to meet up with the ISS, or the Hubble, etc. You don't just go blasting away like an Asteroids video game. You can probably shift your orbit 10 or 20 degrees to the left or right over the course of day or two, but that's about it.
Second, preparing the shuttle for launch is difficult, time consuming, and expensive, as opposed to just tying in a few numbers and pushing the button to launch a conventional ICBM. So you would only arm the Shuttle if nuclear war were imminent, and then it could easily be blasted while it was being set up.
Third, placement of weapons of mass destruction in space is prohibited by treaty. It would be pretty easy to detect violations, without even having any spies on the ground.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
-1 Doesn't get "A Few Good Men" reference.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I would call just an another kind of money-making business. Much of it is self-directed with the intent to sell it to an agency or business, to sell it directly, or to start a business with it. I suspect this holds true for internet-hacking: lots of it is self-directed.
If you really agree with this then we should pay $0.10 per gallon of gas.
I mean we went in and helped out Iraq so lets "take" some of that oil.
love the taste, hate the texture
Has everyone forgotten that, before 9/11, "news" organizations like Fox were banging the war drums against China. Then, when 9/11 happened, that all magically got put on the back burner. China was suddenly not such an immediate threat. Oh, and Pakistan was now our ally. Pakistan had *always* been our ally. Now, I guess people aren't as scared shitless of the terrorists as they were 8 years ago, so they have to bring up the China threat again.
Now, go back to bed America. Watch your mindless television and shut up. Your government is in control.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
The US Constitution makes a successful prosecution for treason very difficult.
Article III. Section 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. Article III
That's the best, one sentence global economic over view I have read. "China is spending money on its future, we are spending money from the future."
Nailed it. And I don't blame them for doing that, because our own domestic economic traitors handed that opportunity to them on a silver platter, the Chinese would have been 'tards to turn it down. It was completely logical what they did and are still doing, building up their own nation, "protecting" themselves, adding to their real economy, etc. Of course they would take that deal, free stuff. And how it happened is we let those wall street pirates and bribed off politicians cook this whole scheme up, then they hard sold it all over, to great success, they sold that con and got most to "believe" in it, and now they are extorting trillions in bailouts on top of that. *Extorting*.
The Chinese guy is sort of a spy, I'm not all that concerned about him because I imagine he is merely one of tens of thousands in a similar (barely hidden) tech transfer situation. Because that's been the business of the US since they started this con job, transfer as much manufacturing tech as possible.
The real economic and security damage has been from the short term mega profits crowd who destroyed, in a single generation, sold it off cheap for a fat skim, what it took multiple generations to build up in the US, all that wealth creation manufacturing infrastructure, all of it, from A to Z. All those value added jobs..all mostly poofed now, so multi millionaires could become billionaires and another flock of corrupt politicians could get re-re-re elected, so they could keep accepting more bribe money, all the time spouting off all these economic and social promises to the US people that they knew in advance could never be met. And they are still doing it, and tons of people asre still falling for that noise.
They sold this global wealth transference con with massive credit expansion, got almost everyone faked out that credit=produced wealth, like it is the same thing. Something to keep the peons amused while their bank accounts, retirement savings, etc all got evaporated away, and will continue to evaporate away.
On a small scale they call it corporate raiding. A hostile take over, sell off all the assets cheap, gut the workforce, etc. Massive short term profits are the result, wall street loves it, politicians love it, they all get rewarded for their "hard work" of gutting companies, then they bail out with golden parachutes, leaving a company in mostly name only. Everyone has seen this happen and knows exactly what that is.
But do the exact same thing on an entire national scale, all of a sudden there's this mass blindfold gets slapped on, people *refuse* to see the situation for what it is, go into complete denial over it, claim it is something other than that. We are supposed to believe these national scale wall street/ DC politician corporate raiders that what they are doing isn't corporate raiding. They just call it something else and say it is a "good deal".
They have been saying that for near 25 years now, and if it WAS such a good deal, why all the recent economic meltdown? Could it be, that manufacturing really is the big kahuna when it comes to creating real wealth, and not phony IOU and credit crap so called "wealth"? I say yes, it is. And we let them crooks sell it off cheap for their fat middleman skims, now we are seriously hosed, and are borrowing against our future generations, which is a pure bogus abomination, we should have never had to do that. It wasn't necessary until we let them sell off/transfer all that good tech and generations of hard work and massive investment in R&D.
This is what happens when the corporate culture gives employees tacit approval to conduct such scams.
Have gnu, will travel.
That is exactly why we went to Iraq, however my personal opinion is gas for personal vehicles should cost $7 to $8 per gallon, when it was $4 a gallon people (where I live) drove slower on average, took less frivolous trips by car, and the general air quality improved.
All of that is based on my personal observations and impressions, please don't feel any need to debate or agree.
But there is this, in recent years America has been built around the car, leading to sprawl, pollution, and impractical city design. Short sighted thinkers, greed and a host of other ills has led us to oil dependence and shitty little rubber stamp strip malls, fast food stops and an overall "ugly" infrastructure.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
First, we are borrowing in no small part because they have their GD money fixed to ours AND have increased trade barriers to our products, dump their products on the west. Per the deal to get Perm. Most Favored Nation AND WTO, they are suppose to do NONE of these things. We need to revoke MFN and then work towards getting WTO revoked as well (that will be difficult, most likely impossible). But if either China obeys their treaties, OR we did the above, we could get our economy back.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Much of that same tech is for use in Missiles. This would allow CHina to build faster, more powerful ones to be able to launch multiple neutron bombs. As it is, they have re-started production of these.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
and my point is "why shouldn't they take everything else as well?".
You live in a World that you feel has laws and morals, I live in a World where: if you have power use it, regardless of law or morality, just be prepared to pay the price if you lose power.
This country is dying, lets get on with it, then and only then will people be forced to face the errors of their ways.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The People's Republic of China (PRC)is only missing three letters, IAY, I will let you do the math!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Not all of it is.
The engines, fuel pumps and materials used in the Shuttle are all state of the art.
Just because the tech is from the 60s and 70s doesn't mean its outdated.
The best heavy bombers in the world, the B-52 are 1950s and early 60s tech, the B-1B are 1970s and 80s tech, the Tu-95/142 are 1950s and 60s tech. The SR-71 was designed and built in the 1960s and nothing has matched it yet.
The engines, pumps, metals, solid rocket boosters are all technologies the PRC doesn't have or is lacking in.
CHINA ACQUIRES '80S TECH
In startling revelations, it was discovered that China's multbilliondollar industrial espionage program has been targeting things invented in the 1980s, because "everyone knows it was the coolest decade". In recent weeks, sources say they've gained access to enormous amounts of sensitive information about Commodore 64s, Nintendo Entertainment Systems, and the Yugo.
The head of the Chinese espionage program was later seen smoking a cigar and proclaiming "I love it when a plan comes together."
But isn't the shuttle itself up for sale? So I guess we're just upset this guy was only getting $3 million for the information, vs. $28.8 million we'd get if we could get the PRC to buy the shuttle itself?
Hi hao, motherf*cker!
an ill wind that blows no good
I'm not sure where you are getting your information about the space stations - but as far as I know there are no space stations run by the Chinese.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
What's the big deal? It's not like it was rocket science or anything.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I know what you're saying here, and I'm trying to think up legal reasoning. I think it's because the act is done. In attempted murder, the act is not completed, where as in buying drugs that end up being dishwasher soap, the transaction was made, the intent was clear, the action was completed.
amassed a personal wealth of more than $3 million US while betraying his adopted country.
Sounds like he was living the American dream (get rich)
We can send a 35 megaton cobalt-salted warhead. You get it in 30 minutes or it's free. Heck, we can probably get it there in 5 minutes.
We show we care by sending the very best. :-)
...very long.
They could use a lot of info on reusable thermal shielding for reentry however. The Russians do not have enough experience in that area.