Rep. Wolf's China Witch Hunt Resumes (Update)
House Chairmen Say NASA May Have Released DOD Secrets To China, Aviation Week
“According to sources at Ames and on Capitol Hill, the case involves Ames Center Director Simon P. “Pete” Worden and members of the center’s staff who are not U.S. citizens. … Among the charges mentioned in the congressional letters are allegations that the protected technology information has been disseminated in public conferences overseas “with Chinese and other foreign officials present,” and that information-protection “safeguards may not have been used or may have explicitly been ignored on multiple occasions” at Ames.”
Keith’s 8 Feb note: Its is rather odd that Aviation Week would make this statement about Worden’s personal “involvement” given that his name is not even contained in the letters (linked below). What is especially baffling is how Rep. Wolf, an avowed China hater, could think that a former Brigadier General – someone who worked throughout the Cold War to defend the U.S. against potential foes such as China, would suddenly – and knowingly – allow his employees to leak things to China or to condone such behavior.
– Letter from Rep. Frank Wolf and Rep. Lamar Smith to FBI Director Mueller, 8 Feb 2013
– Letter from Rep. Frank Wolf and Rep. Lamar Smith to Inspector General Horowitz, 8 Feb 2013
NASA ARC Centerwide Announcement: Ames and National Security
“Last week a news story appeared regarding national security and access to Ames by foreign national individuals. The article referenced letters written by US representatives. The article and the letters mentioned in it are littered with inaccuracies. I take very seriously our responsibility to safeguard sensitive information, so I wanted to let you–Ames employees–know the facts. To the best of our knowledge I am not, nor have I been, the subject of an International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) investigation. I have offered to talk to the news reporter, meet with the US representatives and/or testify under oath regarding export control issues at Ames.”
NASA accused of technology transfers, Washington Times
“Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, released a statement to The Washington Times denying that her office had sought an indictment. “I am aware of allegations our office sought authority from [the Justice Department] in Washington, D.C., to bring charges in a particular matter and that our request was denied,” Ms. Haag said. “Those allegations are untrue. No such request was made, and no such denial was received.”
Heard yesterday that NASA is partnering with ESA on the building of the Orion Spacecraft. WHY? Apollo Saturn didn’t need outsiders did it? So I have to guess that NASA is taking after Bill Gates in that it thinks that Americans and American Companies are not good enough? Heck of a lot of folks out of work now that Shuttle is retired:(
It’s a Quid pro quo.
NASA is owed some dollars by the ESA for NASA’s support of ESA activities aboard the ISS. This debt will be canceled by ESA donating some already flight-tested ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) technology to the Orion service module, thus saving the US tax payer from being billed by Lockheed-Martin for reinventing a wheel.
Rest easy my fellow American. I have been assured by posters on this forum that:
1. NASA is a jobs program. Those shuttle jobs lost in the shut down have been replaced else where by new programs.
and…
2. The Orion is old technology, nothing new, merely a repeat of Apollo technology.
Therefore we must assume if ESA wants to participate let them do it while the real, advanced work is done by Space X.
You must understand the new paradigm shift that Commercial is better. Sweep out the old NASA bring in the new DARPA-like NASA.
while the real, advanced work is done by Space X
?
SpaceX uses not the most advanced stuff I can imagine. They use cheap things to get what they want within the cost limits they have. They will provide a good way to get to LEO. If this is what NASA is for they will provide everything.
Doubt not, Stonemoma. Space X is working on a BEO vehicle, new and improved, lighter than Orion and flying on the Falcon Heavy at a minimum price. Rest assured that when the powers that be name a BEO mission, years from now, oh say, within three or so presidential administrations, Commercial space will supply the transport. Your great grand children will stand on the cracked and eroding pad 39B while visiting the Ron Jon surf shop and wonder what all the fuss was about.
“Heard yesterday that NASA is partnering with ESA on the building of the Orion Spacecraft. WHY?”
International collaboration either saves money or reduces the chance of having a program cancelled. Sometimes, though not often, both.
“Apollo Saturn didn’t need outsiders did it?”
It relied heavily on the work of Von Braun’s team in Nazi Germany. It relied even more heavily on the 20 years of constant development work, through multiple iterations, of prior hardware… unlike…
“Heck of a lot of folks out of work now that Shuttle is retired:( “
Shuttle operations engineers, technicians, and managers are out of work. The shuttle’s original designers and builders had retired long, long before the shuttles did. And while operators and technicians, even NASA’s ageing ones, are smart enough to learn how to build new launch systems, they are not ready to do so until they have learned the new trade and served an “apprenticeship” developing smaller launchers. Likewise, while operations managers might be able to run development teams, they are not in any way “experienced” in doing so.
Imagine an airline taking its brightest maintenance and operations people, qualified engineers all, and putting them in charge of building a new aircraft out of repurposed parts from their retired fleet, having operated only one model of aircraft for 30 years and having never built a new aircraft. Would you fly on that plane?
You might be surprised to learn that a significant number of the engineers who worked on Mercury/Gemini/Apollo, and later Shuttle, were not born Americans. They moved to the US to work for NASA and the contractors when the “space race” started. For example, when the Avro Aero was canned, many of its best engineers moved from Canada to the US to work on NASA programs. Guenter Wendt of McDonnell Aircraft, the NASA Pad Leader through that whole era was one of its best-known figures, and he was from Germany, like all of von Braun’s gang. NASA and its contractors have been working with people from many other countries almost from day one.
Imagine how different this headline would be if this incident involved JPL or GSFC instead of ARC!
The point was that the article named Worden when he wasn’t even mentioned in the letters. This isn’t about one center or another.
What does Aviation Week have against Worden that they’d do this?
After all the cyber-intelligence ops vs. NASA, US institutions and contractors originating from PLA servers we shouldn’t be very careful about what goes into them voluntarily? Get real. And please, many public servants have done more for a few extra zeros in their bank accounts.
That kind of comment just pisses me off. And no, I’ve never worked for the government. But that’s an irresponsible thing to say and unless you have proof best left unsaid.
My career has been in land planning. And I hear citizens saying that ‘him’, or ‘her’, must have been paid off. Or an inspector was paid to look the other way. And you know what? Never happened in my 30 years+. Not once. Not even a whisper, and I was part of some of the biggest land deals around in Florida.
So don’t rain on public employees. Sure, some of them suck. True in any enterprise. But they are far out-numbered by the conscientious and hardworking people who make the government run.
The notion that government is bad has taken root in this country and generated that kind of ill-formed, insipid comment. Unless you have evidence of specific wrong-doing, keep these lame notions to yourself.
FYI I have almost 30 years of public service under my belt to base those comments on. I’ve seen officials, civil employees & labor leaders investigated, charged, imprisoned and released in numbers that made me ill. Then there is the congressional / congressional staff / military revolving door between govt. employees, govt. contractors and their lobbyists on K Street.
I remain in spite of your protestations, justifiably IMO, suspicious of anyone giving China, who has little regard for intellectual property, anything that isn’t nailed & superglued down.
The Cold War has been finished for quite a while now. I wish the same were true of Mr. Wolf’s tenure in office. Speaking as someone who is not American, I consider him an embarrassment to the US.
Thanks for your “non American” input as to how we chose to guard our technology and military secrets.
Perhaps I’m being simplistic, but I think there’s a pretty clear line between protecting secrets and outright bigotry. It’s very clear which side of the line Wolf is on. His attitude and his actions cause bad feelings, and not just for Americans and Chinese. Everybody suffers when a fossil like Wolf makes the kind of public statements and proposals that he does. There are many, many thousands of people who are in the position of having to protect national secrets who manage to so it without making public asses of themselves. With the “right” to freedom of speech comes the “responsibility” for speaking intelligently and considerately of other people.
Rep. Wolf:
It’s far worse than you can possibly imagine!
http://www.space.com/19714-…
Here we have a space station crew member wishing the Chinese a happy new year! And he’s slated to become commander next month. Unfortunately… he’s Canadian. Apparently, the Russian’s timed their Progress cargo ship re-entry to coincide with Chinese New Year to burn up as ‘fireworks’ for the Chinese as well!
Oh, and what is with that Canadian dude anyway? He’s up there two months and he’s got over 300,000 Twitter followers, has had more live chats with students than NASA has scheduled for a year and also has the tenacity to do this:
http://music.cbc.ca/#/Space…
So, Rep. Wolf, no only are NASA employees helping the Chinese but foreigners are taking over the space station as I type!
tinker
…but seriously, folks:
Chris Hadfield isn’t really the over-achieving Canuk that he appears to be (or at least not more then any other astronaut). It’s because he’s not micromanaged to death by his bosses the way NASA astronauts are.
As far as I know, instead of being told what to do (and not do) by PR flacks, Hadfield helped arrange his public events, his STEM events and nobody is hovering over his Twitter account, mulling over every word, phrase and picture for what might (or might not) be ‘politically correct’.
Folks like Rep. Wolf are the ones that the NASA PR flacks fear most, for just the sort of witch hunt he’s perpetrating now. As far as NASA is concerned, it can come flying out of the sun, blindsiding them, at any time, so it’s best to play it on the safe side. Is this any way to run a space agency?
tinker
Another Naive statement. Way to go Tink!
Please explain.
Steve:
I’m trying to figure that out myself. Geez, I try to have some fun, while really trying to make a valid point and I get a response like this? Sigh.
It’s folk like Rep. Wolf that take life too seriously and find a ‘commie’ under every rock. That’s bad for America and the space program. Is that clear enough, Fred?
tinker
I wonder if Rep Wolf has any McCarthy blood in him (Joseph or Charlie).
its self explanatory. Oh and by the way although not accepted in popular lore, most of the people on McCarthy’s list were communist sympathizers.
“its self explanatory.“
In other words, you have no explanations. You just like to insult people.
Keith and Marc insist on professionalism and proper on-line etiquette at NASA Watch, which I respect them for. However, that constrains me from giving you the kind of response your posts deserves. So, from now on I will simple ignore you, and fail to see anything you post.
Happy trolling.
So what if they were communist sympathizers? That’s what (should) make this nation great. You can believe and practice just about anything and not have to worry about being thrown into a jail cell for it.
I see so many Americans these days yelling about someone taking their freedoms away at the same time demanding to take someone else’s freedoms away. Hypocrisy at its finest.
“Fred” won’t be posting here any more. Tired of all the name calling.
Currently NASA research announcements contain an entire section forbidding any involvement of researchers from only one country, China. Yet China is one of only two nations on earth with the present ability to launch humans into space. It is the world’s second largest economy. For China to continue to be excluded from the International Space Station program is absurd.
Representative Wolf’s history of shocking statements regarding China and the Chinese people is documented in Wikipedia. I would hope that there are people in his district and in Congress who understand what a travesty he is. If I were a Chinese industrialist, I might not choose to do business in Virginia. Obviously there is technology transfer – not through NASA but through Walmart, Apple, and other US companies that manufacture in China to boost short-term profits to stockholders. But Wolf has nothing to say about this. In contrast there is little or no technology in the Chinese space program of US origin.
You forgot to include that China ruthlessly penetrates and steals from commercial, civilian, and defense computer networks; completely disregards international intellectual property rights laws; conducts aggressive espionage; conducts aggressive counterspace tests the US and Russia gave up decades ago; and targets the US military as its main adversary. Have I missed anything? Exactly why should we give them access to our technology?
We already give them access to our technology, and it does not involve hacking. It does involve the short-term greed of US stockholders. America’s biggest technology companies, like Apple, actually do the majority of their high tech manufacturing in China, providing that country with a direct infusion of all our latest technology with no need for espionage. Yet in the biggest IP suit in history Apple, a US company which manufactures in China, is suing Samsung, which is NOT Chinese.
The US has conducted actual nuclear detonations in orbit, which China has not. The US conducted an antisatelite test immediately after China’s to prove we have developed an antisatelite capability more powerful (and expensive) than theirs, although our test threw fragments in the path of the ISS. So we certainly didn’t give it up.
In the West copyright infringers don’t bother with manufacturing CDs; anyone who wants to violate IP law can download files for free from distributed filesharing systems.
Computer hacking (often involving malware downloaded by users) is a legitimate criticism, but the US does it also, if not quite as often. http://www.forbes.com/sites…
“One-third of all observed computer attacks from July through September last year came from China, according to a report last month from Akamai Technologies, an Internet services company. The United States was second, originating 13% of observed attacks, followed by Russia with 4.7%.”
Actual CIA intrusions (e.g. satellite interception of cell-phone conversations or the bug that was planted on a Russian undersea cable) are usually unreported for the obvious reason that they remain undetected.
And let’s not forget the 747 sold by the US to China as a VIP transport for the Chinese president. It had over 100 bugs, even in the President’s bed, with sophisticated hidden transmitters to send conversations back to the US. How insulting is that?
My point isn’t that China is lily-white. My point is that we play the same game, and it is not to our advantage to let it interfere with the benefits of communication and mutual understanding between the superpowers. As to privacy, the moment you download a free app and give it access to your Android files, you don’t have it. Get used to it.
nic, I wonder if you will be so stoic and objective when Chinese imperialism is knocking at your front door some day.
“We already give them access to our technology, and it does not involve hacking.”
This has been noted in many other publications including Richard Elkus book Winner Take All (“it was not stolen, it was sold”). And I also wonder how come many companies that offshored manufacturing plus design and development to China never get criticized by Wolf.
“we play the same game”
When US wants to gather information on other countries activities, we employ intelligence agents. When another country does the same to us, we accuse them of using spies.
“The US conducted an antisatelite test immediately after China’s to prove we have developed an antisatelite capability more powerful (and expensive) than theirs, although our test threw fragments in the path of the ISS. So we certainly didn’t give it up.”
This refers to the USA-193 hydrazine tank destruction, that was controversial — political lefties did attack it as a ‘weapons demo’ but the actual story looks like a genuine safety measure. But proclaiming the doctrinaire leftwing legend is undisputed fact does not provide the nuanced arguments that can lead to persuasion.
I agree with you James. Thanks.
I think if you work in colaboration with Jaxa and ESA and a lot of companies around the globe it is nearly impossible to follow all stupid ITAR rules. If you want somebody removed dig around and you will find something. A tour around the facility or a nice talk on a conference or an e-mail will contain a small ITAR violation and than it is over.
I’ve known Peter Worden for over forty years and he doesn’t strike me as a guy who’d give the farm to the Chinese. Just a little too far to the right (of Attila the Hun) for that.
Really? When it comes to ITAR and international cooperation, he’s to the left of Lenin. The smoke has been billowing around Ames for over 5 years — will they finally find the fire?
umm, maybe I’ve been living under a rock but “too far to the right (of Attila the Hun)” and “to the left of Lenin” phrases confuses me for a Center Director, a retired USAF general involved with partnerships with companies and universities.
Michael, it seems that some of our fellow NASA Watch regulars are terribly afraid of something. Today it’s China; it used to be the Soviets; before that the Germans, etc., all the way back though history. I don’t think it really matters who is named as the bad guy as long as these insecure people have someone to feel morally superior to, someone they can point to as “The Problem,” then they don’t have to give any thought to the possibility that we in the west might have our own list of faults and crimes. If only life were that simple…
Steve: “Michael, it seems that some of our fellow NASA Watch regulars are terribly afraid of something. Today it’s China; it used to be the Soviets; before that the Germans, etc., all the way back though history. “
And after the Germans and Soviets emerged from their tyrannical aggressive regimes, they became good international partners on Earth and in space. The reasons for being ‘afraid’ vanished with regime change [or evolution], and will do so with China as well, under the same conditions.
“Will do so“?
Jim,
I agree with your logic completely, but I also think that the regime change has already happened. Today’s China is certainly not the one that backed “the other side” in Korea and Vietnam, which people like Wolf still seem to see in their mind’s eye.
One issue I like to stress is that in China, as in most countries, there are three groups: the government, the common people, and the money people. This third group is the industrialists, the financiers, and other wealthy (by comparison) people who rule the country’s economy. Although the money people make up by far the smallest group, the balance of power in China has been shifting more and more to them during the last 30 years, making China much less “communist” than before. The government keeps on with its five years plans, but I think it’s more because that system works well for them than because it’s the communist way.
The main problem I have is that people don’t seem to recognize that there are three groups. They talk about “the Chinese” and “China” as if they were all one homogeneous group, and the sins of any are the sins of all. And this is simply not justified, any more than blaming today’s Chinese population for the actions of their grandparents. Taken together, it would be like me blaming you for Watergate, or blaming Angela Merkel for Hitler.
I believe that the general attitude of American senior citizens is both inherited and (currently) uninformed, yet this group still appears to have more influence in these matters than the rest of the population. Perhaps if the education system taught more world history and current events instead of concentrating on the US…
Steve
Regime change will be needed in Wolf’s district in northern Virginia before NASA policy changes. Ironically Virginia is spending millions to boost exports to China.
If there is any truth to Rep. Wolf’s allegations and if protected technology has been disseminated I don’t think Pete Worden is the only guilty party. In the rush to publish and get recognition there is a cavalier attitude about IP and the recognition of original work at the Ames Research Center. That has been my observation after 12 years at Ames. In that environment serious mistakes can occur.
“In that environment serious mistakes can occur.“
True enough, but mistakes are very a different situation from law-breaking or negligence. This article implies the latter and names Worden, without providing any evidence for these serious allegations. I’m quite surprised that the AW editor let this go through (Hollywood sensationalism meets aerospace reporting?).
This thing leaves a bad taste all the way ’round. I hope people will remember: innocent until proven guilty (or slurred once too often).
Mike, that’s a possible explanation for his behavior, but certainly not a justification. Anyone, not just public figures, who thinks so narrowly is going to cause bad feelings, and in cases like this there can be serious consequences in terms of international relations (which, of course, effects everybody’s economies).
China’s “family planning” policies seem severe to many people here, but they fail to recognize that 1) the Chinese population as a whole benefited greatly from the “one child” policy, and 2) it was done in a reasonable manner; the concept of “one child per family” was integrated into the education system and the whole program was volunteer for the people, not enforced.
By contrast, India had an enforced population program for quite a while which was done through vasectomies for men whose families had (by law) too many children. These vasectomies were enforced and, in fact, for a while the penalty for breaking all kinds of laws, even laws not pertaining in any way to population, was instant vasectomy. Many tens of thousands of Indian men (and possibly many more) were thus penalized (sorry for the pun; I couldn’t resist) with no appeal possible. This is certainly much more objectionable than the Chinese voluntary restraint approach, but I don’t hear Mr. Wolf attacking the Indian people or government every week.
There are many religions on this planet with doctrines and policies much harsher towards women than anything in China, and these still-flourishing religions are all much older than Christianity. But, again, I don’t hear of Wolf regularly speaking out against them in public.
I’m sorry to say it, but it looks, to me, like Wolf simply hates the Chinese, for some personal reason(s), and I would be very surprised if national security had anything to do with it at all. Just my opinion, of course.
What was that about Wolf being paranoid about China? That we need not be concerned about them? Hmmmm….
http://bbc.co.uk/news/world…
Report: http://intelreport.mandiant…