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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...
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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? ]=-
I don't think the Shuttle is terrible It just should have been replaced. It has been flying for about 30 years now.
Building a more modern Shuttle. I would would really like to see that. The X-33 was supposed to be a shuttle replacement but it got canned for what I think where not good reasons.
Also you don't want to boost the shuttle farther. What you want is a space tug that takes payloads higher. That was supposed to be part of the shuttle program but it got canceled.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well, I, for one, didn't know the GP was Chines :+
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
Terrible reasons actually... If they had just decided to use Aluminum tanks instead of the(at the time) troublesome composite tanks they could have had the X-33 flying...
Way too heavy. The whole X-33 project depended on a bunch of exotic technologies simultaneously succeeding. Linear aerospike, metallic heat shield "tiles", exotically structural materials... May as well have bet the farm on a warp drive and computer AI, too.
Reusable SSTO does not appear to be technologically or economically viable at this time. Its like demanding Christopher Columbus wait until he can fly a supersonic Concorde across the pond instead of using his wooden sailboats.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It was an X program. That is the entire point of and X program. It is too push technology.
I think the problem is the X-33 didn't fit the X program very well. The X-15 had an equation, every pound of vehicle weight means X lower top speed and/or X lower altitude. With the X-33 orbiter, its orbit or don't orbit. I think it would have been a PR disaster if it didn't quite make it. Thus either it'll suck, or they'll push the limit too far and blow it up and that'll suck. Perhaps they beat the vegas odds and get everything to work perfectly, in which case it'll suck when people ask why spend all that cash when multistage disposable boosters are a much cheaper program. Kind of a no-win situation.
No one remembers the X-3 very fondly, although it was an interesting aircraft and provided valuable results.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger