Boeing Throws Space Station Parts Away 160
Bob Plankers writes: "Boeing staff were seen combing a landfill looking for $750,000 worth of space station parts that were inadvertently discarded. You can get the full details on CNN. " Luckily, there were spare parts still around -- but it's a pretty funny story nonetheless.
If anything got damaged, they can post it on Ebay. (Score:2)
What this doesn't tell you . . . (Score:3)
I'm guessing there's a tank with a light coating of peanut butter and banana peels sitting up on blocks in a redneck's yard by now . . .
bah! who needs those (Score:3)
I don't know the exact size of those puppies, but the ones that I have seen and worked with on other sections of the station (I work for Boeing) were big enough not to be easily "mis- placed." (roughly the size of a standard propane tank on a gas grill)
A good rule of thumb:
If you have a $750,000 piece of equipment in a nondescript crate sitting outside a building;
a) make it descript and label it profusely as NOT trash.
b) have someone watch it so it doesn't get stolen or sent to the trash.
But I guess (or hope) they won't make that mistake again.
Commander Moe Of The Space Haulers (Score:1)
Wasteful; damaging for the environment (Score:1)
These kind of incidents are why we need better policing of dumps. For example, each company should be audited once a week to make sure that aren't disposing of any environmentally harmful material such as gasoline or CFCs. And where the hell are the electric cars? If the government wasn't so busy trying to gouge prices on gasoline, we'd all be driving in flying, solar-powered cars. Anyone who's ever seen The Jetsons knows that an invention like this is not far out of our reach.
Write your Congressmen and Congresswomen. Demand change.
One agency's junk is another man's afterburner... (Score:2)
"What do you mean, your dad's bolting them to the back of his pickup..?"
Dangerous situation (Score:2)
On the other hand the parts may have been damaged, and if they were to be installed into a running and operational space station they may pose a danger to the crew on board.
This just shows how sensitive technology is these days.
How did this happen? (Score:1)
And if they can't find them, who did? I think it's pretty funny that there might be someone out there playing with a peice of the international spacestation.
Of course this all might be an exuse to buy more time for the station project to begin with...
"Out of all the things I lost in life, I miss my mind the most." --Ozzy Osborne
Enough problems already! (Score:1)
Re:How did this happen? (Score:1)
Firsthand experience (Score:5)
I also met a guy when I was in the Navy who was making a bundle buying nuclear grade parts by the pound at military auctions, doing a little research back to the manufacturer and either selling it back to the Navy or the manufacturer. Said he one made $40K off one valve alone.
And you wonder why the government spends so much money. (P/S. I work for a Navy Shipbuilder now, imagine losing a set of screws for an aircraft carrier).
Woops... (Score:2)
"Ahhh jeez"
"What?"
"KNEW we forgot something... Sorry guys, theres no oxygen tanks on the station, pretty soon you guys are gonna be breathing pure CO2."
"..."
"Guys?"
This bringsanother question: (Score:2)
How possibly a gas tank (of whatever kind -- it definitely isn't larger than the space station itself, and it is supposed to contain such a simple thing as liquified oxygen or nitrogen) can be this expensive? Doesn't it look like Boeing is being paid much more than what its products can possibly be worth?
(and if I am wrong, I would like to hear the explanation)
My Guess Is: (Score:1)
people are always finding treasure at the dump.
Like any labyrinthine corporate bueaucracy,no-one
could find their ass with both hands and a map,big
surprise there.
Good Explanation (Score:1)
Re:Dangerous situation (Score:2)
Not only do they get secrets up front, they also get protection from stealing them the old-fashioned way as well!
Searching Trash ... (Score:1)
Ohh yeah ... and 2 new cars ... stupid me I left them too close to the curb ... the garbage people must of just picked them up by accident.
Looks like they found the space station's computer (Score:2)
It's a Lisa!
---
"Good enough for government work." (Score:3)
I'm looking forward to the day that the public looks upon our ailing space program (and, by extension, nationally funded R&D) as something more than an enormous public works project. No amount of positive spin can undo the damage caused by a handful of silly mistakes such as this.
750 Grand is not really that much (Score:1)
Okay, 750 Grand would be more then enough to keep me more then happy for life. But in Aerospace Industrial terms, that is about the equivalent of me throwing away a box of Lil' Debbies that still had a bar in it.
This could be just about anything...plumbing fixture, space shuttle pain, gallons of tang. Who knows?
The Astronauts.... (Score:3)
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - A tragic day for the Earth as two astronauts have perished in space due to the idiocy of Boeing engineers. Two air tanks which would have provided air to the astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavor were mistakenly left upon the ground, and in fact, in a land fill.
Amazingly, our under cover agents have been able to obtain a top secret audio recording of the communications just before the untimely death of America's newest heroes. Unfortunately, names are not yet known of the deceased:
[Astronaut #1] Mission Command, we have a problem. Our instruments show we're losing air up here. Please confirm.
[Mission Control] Uhh, Affirmative Endeavor. We show a slight drop in breathable air. Give us a minute, we'll get back to you on that.
[Astronaut #2] Tell them to hurry the fuck up! This dial isn't going anywhere but southward!
[Astronaut #1] Just.. give.. them.. some.. time. I'm.. sure.. they'll.. have.. an answer.
[MC] Endeavor, this is Mission Control. We recommend you use your suicide capsules within the next few minutes
[Astronaut #2] WHAT!? You're telling me..... there's no air.... aboard this fucking ship!?
[Astronaut #1] Stop yelling fool! You're wastin all the air!!
[MC] Well, guys, have a good one. Everyone down here is hailing your mission as a victory for all mankind... Make us proud gentlemen!
[Astronaut #1] Well, fuck... what do we do now?
As you can see, a shameless show of disregard for the lives of these brave astronauts. And all because Boeing couldn't keep track of a couple of fucking air canisters.
THIS WAS A JOKE. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT IT AS SUCH, DON'T READ IT
even funnier, check the other headlines.... (Score:1)
-Brad
Engineer's strike a bigger story. (Score:5)
I'd like to think that the largest tech-worker strike in history counts as "news for nerds" (After all, _I_ work there...). Propaganda at http://www.speea.org [speea.org]. Also photos of about 25 undelivered planes sitting out on the line. Good news collection at Yahoo [yahoo.com].
-a Boeing Employee
They turned it into a WHAT? (Score:2)
Larry: Sure Moe, I gave them to NASA. They said they needed them to decorate the 'Mars Polar Lamp' or something...
Curley: Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!
Re:The Astronauts.... (Score:1)
However, you probably ought to put it at the top next time.
Not shocking (Score:1)
Re:750 Grand is not really that much (Score:1)
Okay, 750 Grand would be more then enough to keep me more then happy for life.
Then you don't live in SF Bay Area -- here it's merely enough to not be homeless (but possibly still hungry) for life :-(
Re:What this doesn't tell you . . . (Score:3)
Dilbert: We've been walking around this landfill for eight, nine minutes now looking for these tanks the PHB threw away.
Wally: [picks up gum wrapper] Looks like a piece of the tank - obviously shredded to uselessness. Are we done?
Dilbert: I feel done.
They threw away a hammer? (Score:1)
Re:If anything got damaged, they can post it on Eb (Score:1)
Re:The Astronauts.... (Score:2)
Why... do... your... astronauts... talk... like... William... Shatner... ?
How they found the Oxygen tank. (Score:3)
Supervisor, "Nah, don't waste your time lookin', it ain't been found by now, ain't gonna be. Go on and take a break."
Worker with cigarette to supervisor, "Got a light?"
TV News Anchor, "Just minutes ago an explosion ocurred here at the landfil, killing two, others have been injured. Cause as yet is undetermined but there is concern that the lost Oxygen tank may have caused or enhanced the explosion."
Reclassification (Score:5)
They didn't "loose" the tanks. The tanks were placed in an extreemly low geosyncronous orbit in advance of final component assembly.
...and a partial answer (Score:5)
First, the hardware is being designed for human use in space, so there are an incredible number of specifications it must meet -- and each specification carries with it at least one test, and probably more. The final hardware must be certified as having been tested to each of these specs, and having passed. So a very large part of what's being paid for is the cost of meeting the required specs, and then maintaining the paperwork trail. (It's a common saying in the aerospace industry that you can't fly something until the paperwork weighs more than the vehicle; this is way too conservative for space stuff, though.)
Second, because it's space hardware, NASA is paying for it to be light weight; with each pound orbited by the Shuttle costing between $5K and $10K (depending on how you do the accounting, but I won't go there), time-consuming design work and lightweight-but-expensive construction is cheaper than orbiting a quickly-designed (and overdesigned), heavy version. Added to this is the complication that it is for space use, and there are design considerations you don't face here on earth (things like the zero-gee environment -- you have to stir liquid gasses, because there's no convection -- safety requirements for both on-orbit use and for transport in the Shuttle's cargo bay, and so on). All these add to the cost, too.
Third, the production run on these parts can be counted on the fingers of one hand, probably -- one set for the station, one or two sets of spares, and two or three more sets for testing here on earth. So there's no cost savings from amortizing the upfront engineering costs over a large production; it's all on the handful that are produced. And note that the cost of the ones used in testing is absorbed into the station set and the spares, too -- so they cost something like double what you might expect just from that alone.
Having said all that in defense of the cost, I do have to confess that it probably doesn't cover the entire price quoted in the article. There is no doubt a pretty fair chunk of the cost that exists solely because it's an aerospace contract for NASA; some of this is because they can get away with it, and some is because they have to put up with NASA being a pain in the ass... (I've worked on a number of contracts for NASA; it's hard to charge enough for PITA, because they are pros at it!). If the parts were spec'd, designed and built in-house, for a Boeing-funded project, I suspect they would cost a fraction of the quoted value -- even for the identical application.
And now that you know, I'm going to bet that it doesn't really make you feel all that much better, does it?
---
What if we don't want change? (Score:2)
Some of us would rather carry around large bills than dollar bills and coins. What about us? Shall you to oppress us?
Blame Congress, not NASA (Score:2)
In the early days of planning for the ISS, NASA officials were not gaga about the project. However, do you want to piss off Congress?
For those of you who would be inclined to critize NASA for this, I would like to say the following. Don't totally blame NASA. NASA does not really want the ISS. NASA wants cheaper, faster, woops...where did it go? (Sorry, I couldn't resist:-))
Re:Looks like they found the space station's compu (Score:1)
LISA was much smarter than the people responsible for this
Re:This bringsanother question: (Score:1)
As to liquid oxygen storage: have you ever tried to store LOX? It is a seriously difficult substance to deal with, particularly in microgravity and for long durations. In particular, it's fond of a) freezing things, b) oxidizing the tank wall, and c) vaporizing and causing an over-pressurization of your tank. Over-pressurized tanks generally explode.
Re:750 Grand is not really that much (Score:1)
Re:who says NASA wastes money? (Score:1)
Now, if they go ahead and pay Boeing to replace the tanks, then it will become NASA's problem.
They couldn't look a little harder? (Score:4)
When I was in the Marine Corps. somone lost a pair of Night Vision Goggles in the field. These were old Army hand-me-downs that were probably only worth a few thousand bucks brand new.
Once they realized they were lost they made the entire company (~250 men) go back out on the weekend and cover about 15 miles of terrain looking for them.
We eventually found them in a muddy-mire by having us all get in a line and going through it on our hands searching.
If these Boeing and NASA Engineers (I'm an engineer now too, BTW) want to piss away my tax money, they should have a seargeant there putting his jungle boot up their ass to find it.
Just my
mandatory performance testing (Score:1)
Either that, or they were undergoing performance tests in the field to demonstrate the rigorous construction of the tanks.
Those damned super intelligent space monkeys! (Score:1)
-FluX
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Your Ad Here!
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Re:mandatory performance testing (Score:1)
"Yup,if you put 'em in the compactor, it squashes 'em"
"Now let's see what happens when we put them in a smelter."
Re:The Astronauts.... (Score:1)
Because they're low on oxygen, and are probably trying to catch their breath between each word.
--
750,000 for a propane tank (Score:1)
What the hell is so special. Are they made out of platinum?
These are OUR taxes.. (Score:1)
"space program" and alike.. here is how it spent.
90% gets lost or stolen here on earth and the
rest is used to make space station they cant find.
I hate that..:( I work hard and this is what i get..
Re:...and a partial answer (Score:4)
Think how much it would cost you to have a custom, high-tech titanium gas tank built for your Harley... and then consider that the tanks in the story are literally rocket science, rather than scooter parts.
---
Did anybody stop to think... (Score:1)
At least they don't doublecharge the gov't (Score:1)
At the very least, Boeing didn't double-charge the government.
They could have, y'know? They could have charged the gov't for things that are "needed", no matter if those things were thrown away in the first place or not.
Re:750 Grand is not really that much (Score:1)
I got them :) (Score:1)
#define X(x,y) x##y
Similar screwup with Secret documents (Score:4)
Seems the messenger between facilities had taken off with a box left on TOP of the van; a few blocks down the road the box fell off and burst into a rain of classified schematics! (I think that particular project had something to do with hypervelocity missiles).
We spent the next half hour frantically snatching up documents-literally ripping them out of curious onlooker's hands. Around the time we finished cleaning up the last of the visible strays, a dark blue sedan pulled up with two Men In Dark Blue- Pentagon security auditors. They ended up pulling the clearance of the van driver (a serious career limiting move) and we suffered from increased ultra-paranoid security in our facility for the next few months.
In the end, 17 individual sheets were unaccounted for, although we received reports of individual sheets washing up on the beach (they had been carried down to the ocean in storm sewers) for the next few months. The more cycnical employees "pshawed" the whole thing... saying "you couldn't find a Russian to buy it off you, they had all that shit six months ago."
Note for non-guvmint types: "Secret" was one of the three levels of classified documents we worked with; "Confidential," "Secret," and "Top Secret." Each individual is cleared to one level, which allows access to documents at that level and below. My classification was "Secret."
Re:Slashdot Management Test Post - DO NOT MODERATE (Score:1)
#define X(x,y) x##y
landfill? try ebay (Score:1)
Re:Space Morons (Score:1)
Sounds Suspicioulsy like the nightly news (Score:1)
Medicines That Kill When Taken In Extremely Large Doses! Is your family in danger???
Details after this crap about the local fire department...
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:3)
I wouldn't assume that the loss is Boeing's fault. From personal experience, I have seen how property accountability and other functions can get screwed up on government contracts. This can happen during reorganizations when the contractor is changed, departments are eliminated, functions are moved to a different contractor or budgets are cut.
One day there is a group of people responsible for X, the next day the bureaucratic equivalent of a neutron bomb is dropped and the people have disappeared, even if X is still needed. It can take months or years for the resulting problems to get fixed.
I have seen equipment rot in place or fall out of calibration because the slots for the technicians were eliminated or because of problems transitioning to a new contractor.
Systems can't be maintained because the development hardware is broken and nobody is willing to fund the retention of the hardware and software engineers who know the system.
Configuration control, quality assurance, testing and documentation get screwed up because they are the favorite targets of managers when budgets get cut.
The Congress and agency heads demand that we do more with less. This often results in massive reorganizations, budget cuts and managers having to decide who and what is expendable.
Re:...and a partial answer (Score:1)
lost in landfills (Score:1)
People invariable come to the landfill looking for something they threw away (wallets, rings..), usually they never find it. If they get there befor the truck they can get the truck dumped out to the side and look.
My favorite was a consered looking woman who showed up at 7 am and wanted to know if any of us had seen a silver box she threw out a week before. No we told her, although she was welcome to look for it.. What was in the box? "An awfull lot of money...." She never found it, and we didn't either.
ooops.
If the crates of space stuff were noticed, they are probably in some landfill workers back yark or were sold for scrap.
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:1)
Re:Firsthand experience (Score:2)
I meant screws as in propellers. You can imagine how huge they are on a carrier. It took two months to rediscover the propellers in a Navy warehouse where they had been hibernating for over 20 years. The warehouse didn't even know what the propellers were for.
As far as pilferage, as long as it isn't controlled material they seldom get caught. In fact I had one guy try to sell me a spent plutonium source calibartor for an AN-PDR27. The moron had it in his front pocket right next to his nuts. I know its just an Alpha emitter but still...
Foot Icon (Score:1)
Stolen tanks perhaps? (Score:1)
I wonder how extensive the landfill search was, and how long ago the tanks were "discarded"?
Maybe it's possible that a sanation worker or boeing insider decided to appropriate these tanks! =)
Of course, I haven't a clue what they would be any good for... hmm... what would one do with such a tank... put it in the living room? Y2K bunker maybe? I wonder how big the tanks are?
From nasa watch (Score:2)
4 March 2000: Boeing's missing tanks not explosive [al.com], Huntsville Times
"Huntsville workers for Boeing accidentally threw away the two $375,000 tanks last month and later found a piece of their protective covering in the Huntsville landfill.
Boeing has said that if the tanks must be replaced, then NASA, not Boeing, must pay for them, due to terms of a contract between the organizations."
By coincidence, this month is "Property Awareness Month" at NASA MSFC ...
Re:man (Score:1)
This story has been on Nasa Watch since 3/1/00 (Score:2)
The Nasa Watch site [nasawatch.com]
Boeing's missing tanks not explosive [al.com]
Pay for the snafu [al.com]
Space Station parts go in trash [al.com]
Workers Seek Space Station Parts [yahoo.com]
Re:...and a partial answer (Score:2)
Pretty funny that something so big can depend on something so small
Re:Engineer's strike a bigger story. (Score:1)
Re:...and a partial answer (Score:1)
Sorry to take up the obvious line here, but:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the message was lost.
For want of a message, the battle was lost.
For want of a battle, the war was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Put simply, the devil has always been in the detail.
The mind boggles... (Score:1)
>engineer now too, BTW) want to piss away my tax
>money, they should have a seargeant there
>putting his jungle boot up their ass to find it.
How exactly do you piss huge LOX canisters up your own butt-hole? And what hope has any sergeant alive got of extracting them with a jungle boot? Sorry, I know you might not find this funny, but I just love the sick images your statement conjured up.
Re:Similar screwup with Secret documents (Score:2)
Earlier to that, a disk containing a list of informants was left in a phone booth. Someone found it and took it home to discover that, not only was this disk left somewhere, the files on it were not encrypted. Luckily the person who found the disk was honest enough to return it, and it was believed that the identity of the informants was not released to anyone else.
Dangerous Space Hardware (Score:1)
The rumour going around here regarding the Mars polar lander is that it got to within 1 foot of the ground just fine. There was supposed to be a cutoff switch built into each of the 3 legs that automatically killed the retro rockets upon contact with the ground, but during the software design phase someone accidentally disabled the cutoff switch. The rockets kept firing . . . the lander kept trying to `fly' while sitting on the ground . . . it kicked up a huge cloud of dirt (thus incapacitating itself with dust), or maybe skidded along the ground until it flipped over.
Nothing on the space station is very new, technologically. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt . . . now let's stop pissing around in low earth orbit and do something useful in space.
What would be useful? How about
Re:I live in Untsville too (HUMOR) (Score:1)
Well mister ninja, you may have temporarily set back Boeing's plans, but did you know that those missing tanks were actually MAPLE SYRUP tanks, destined for use in the Maple syrup Pancake Logistics Module (MPLM)?
The MPLM is a sophisticated pressurised pancake container built by the Alenia Company in Italy. It's true! They are building three of them and naming them Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello. (I dunno what happened to Michaelangelo).
Silly Italians think they're named after famous artists, but we PANCAKE engineers know that they're really NINJA TURTLES! Can you dig it?!
Re:Wasteful; damaging for the environment (Score:1)
Do you seriously think that the referenced Oxy tanks would actually have compressed oxygen in them? I'm registered by NASDS as an open water diver and there are strict regulations for the oxygen canisters we use. You have to have your tanks regularly inspected for corrosion and any other number of problems. I can't even begin to imagine what type of regs there are for oxygen canisters in outer space when the ones for inner space are so stringent.
Now, do you actually think that they would leave maxed out canisters laying around. I think not...
They probably had a minimum amount of pressure (probably 1+ atm) which amounts to a minimum amount of danger.
Next time go harp about world hunger and keep your little tabloid posts to yourself.
Let me get this straight... (Score:1)
I can see it now "Uh... hi, remember that space shuttle, I think it was called Atlantis? Well, funny thing, it got hauled away as garbage and we can't find it... so, will you be paying for a new one by check, or just expensing it?"
Damn, why can I ever get involved in contracts where the other guy pays for our stupidity. Oh wait, that's what for-pay tech support is for...
Re:If anything got damaged, they can post it on Eb (Score:1)
reasons for cost (Score:2)
That said, there ARE other reasons for these to be so expensive. When something is in space, it is subject to a harsh environment completely different than what a gas grill tank is. There is radiation, pressure (or lack thereof), temperature extremes, and major reliability needs.
There are other costs that are coupled into the $750,000. R&D is a major section of this. This involves the 20 engineers designing it and the 400 managers who sat in meetings for a year to come up with the acronym ;)
Another cost is in the manufacturing: tooling, machining, building, etc. After a few are built (prototypes, test subjects, etc) they have to be certified for space and this costs A LOT.
"Space Certification" for a CPU is on the order of $1 million. This is a reason why almost all of the CPUs on the Space Station are 386's instead of PIII 800's.
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:2)
"Yeah, and we would have got away with it too -- if it wasn't for the NSA and their stupid dog!"
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:1)
Sadly, shrinking budgets and forced reorganization seem to be endemic to large R&D projects. The vision that initiates a project seldom carries through to its fruition, and so the environment changes. In a perfect world if an organization is unable to fulfill a function within budgetary constraints, then management needs to have the spine to address their clients and inform them that they can't deliver a quality product under said constraints. This never happens in real life, unfortunately, and so to keep the cash cow alive corners get cut, errors get made, and projects which already suffer from adverse public opinion (which led to the shrinking budgets in the first place) experience failures to compound the problem. Just look at the failed Mars probes and the NIF facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labratory as cases in point.
[Note to moderators: Detritus's followup to my original post is more informative than my post, so if anyone has two points to spare, if you could moderate mine down a point and move Detritus's up a point, I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks.]
Newsflash - Boeing may have sold the missing parts (Score:1)
Editor's note: word is spreading fast at NASA MSFC that Boeing may have actually sold the two ISS tanks at a surplus property sale for $50. The tanks cost NASA $750,000.
Stay tuned.
The view from inside (Score:5)
First of all, what were these tanks? The space station uses an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere that approximates sea level composition, without the 1% argon and trace elements. As the crew breathes and uses up oxygen, the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly scavenges the CO2 and dumps it overboard. The oxygen tank provide the replacement O2 to make up what is lost. The space station modules have many cables and pipes that go through the walls of the modules, and the modules are bolted to each other. There is a certain amount of leakage at these points (on the order of a pound a day). Since the station atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, you need to replace that too.
You need to play with the composition of the atmosphere in the airlock to prepare for a spacewalk (reduce dissolved nitrogen in the blood to prevent the bends), and also to refill the spacesuit tanks afterwards. For this reason these tanks are mounted on the outside of the Airlock module, which is still under construction here in Huntsville.
There are up to three tanksets that can be mounted on the airlock at any one time, each tankset consisting of two pressure tanks, the 'doghouse'
that covers them and provides insulation and protection from space debris, and the structural mountings, plumbing, valves, and wiring. It's not clear to me what exactly was lost, but from the size of the box it was likely one tankset, which is about 3x3x4 feet in size. There are something like 8-10 total tanksets in existence, since full ones would be brought up to replace the ones on orbit that were empty, plus spares for 10 years of operation.
Why do they cost $750,000? Boeing and it's subcontractors spend about $45,000 a pound to design airplanes or space stations. Pound for pound they cost the same to develop, because it's the same guys following the same design standards, using the same type of CAD workstations, etc. And the airplanes sell for $600 a pound. So assume the tankset weighs 300 pounds (I haven't looked up the weight, that's an educated guess based on the size). So the total design cost would have been $13.5 million spread over 10 units, or $1.35 million per unit, plus a manufacturing cost of $180,000 per unit. The quoted cost of $750,000 is less than this because the tankset is simpler than average for the station or an airplance as a whole , being mostly structure rather than a mix of structure and active components like computers and life support systems.
How did they get thrown out? Most likely (I have no official information to go on) sloppy inventory tracking and labeling. I'm pretty sure someone didn't walk out with them, since the storage yard outside the building is behind two barbed wire fences, and with crate you are talking about a 500 pound item. Most of the US portion of the Space Station is being assembled in this building, and crates of components are arriving all the time. A trash contractor periodically picks up dumpsters full of packing materials and the empty crates, and I suspect the screwup was something like parking a full crate over by the empty crate pile, and no one bothered to check to see if it was really empty. The overall impact to the program isn't so bad, since you effectively have lost one of your spare units (you have 9 now instead of 10), and they will simply produce a replacement.
Re:Similar screwup with Secret documents (Score:1)
Re:What if we don't want change? (Score:2)
They'll never find the rest... (Score:1)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:1)
$40M fighter jets (Score:1)
Judging from the media attention this has garnered, I don't think NASA has a habit of throwing away million-dollar toys. Except for the Mars Lander...
Latest news from nasa watch (Score:1)
Re:Firsthand experience (Score:1)
A friend of mine is an army brat. He told me that once, while he was living on a base in Colorado where his father was stationed, someone got a single digit of a single item number on a single form wrong - and as a result, a 40,000 lb ship's propeller got sent to the base. In Colorado.
Re:Anyone surprised? (Score:1)
Re:Similar screwup with Secret documents (Score:1)
Re:Similar screwup with Secret documents (Score:1)
Why does this guy need clearance to drive a van?
Will Dominoes not hire this delivery boy cause he lost his TopSecret(tm) clearance? Does this mean he won't make truck driver?
Re:Dangerous situation (Score:1)
Re:Boeing (Score:1)
Re:Dangerous Space Hardware (Score:1)
Re:They couldn't look a little harder? (Score:1)
I wonder how much it cost Boeing to look for the tanks?
Greg
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:1)
Well, that's very interesting. I never knew that. Which is kind of funny, because I work for one of those big plane and weapon making companies.
In reality, the U.S. *severely* regulates its contractors (in both their work with the government AND their other work with govs. of other countries). If you disagree with this, you obviously have never worked for one.
Furthermore, the Airbus incident leads me to believe that other countries perhaps do not keep as short a leash on their companies.
My company got caught doing something questionable a couple of years back and was made to pay an immense fine. Furthermore, all the employees (there are six digits worth) were made to undergo special training over the course of three or six years as part of the agreement with the government. If we mess up again we could be barred from doing government contracts, which would be bad seeing as how that's probably 75% of our revenue.
Finally, it's kind of stupid to say that I shouldn't say anything bad about a foreign company because of imperfections in a domestic company.
Re:Firsthand experience (Score:1)
Re:"Good enough for government work." (Score:1)
It is never too late to learn...
In reality, the U.S. *severely* regulates its contractors
On the surface maybe - just like any country supposedly do. In reality, all, and by this I mean ALL really large foreign contracts involve some palm greasing at one point. There is no such thing as a multibillion $ weapon sale without some bribering. If a US company can't do it officially, they'll give some "commissions" to a guy in a Bahamas bank, who in turn will give part of it to someone, who will give its share to some important guy or its political party.
Heck, if some pentagon guys get their share of the money, I don't really see how an underpaid official in a third wirld country couldn't get his share of the contract.
As for civil airplanes sales, large ones have also their share of "unofficial" deals. When bribery is not enough the US sends Albright to do a little visit in the name of "a long time friendship" between the US and Nowhereland and take care of finishing the deal (in exchange of whatever favor she can't give away). I'm not saying it is worse than in Europe, it is just the same thing.
Finally, it's kind of stupid to say that I shouldn't say anything bad about a foreign company because of imperfections in a domestic company.
Well, if you say something bad about a foreign country just to make yours look better, when in fact it is as bad (if not worse), then I belive this is not fair. Europeans have their share of imperfections, but to point your finger at Airbus as more corrupt than Boeing is just plain hypocrisis (or if you truly believe that, then welcome to the real world - one where everybody is not as nice and honest as they pretend)
Um... (Score:1)