Frank Wolf Dumps on NASA For Doing What He Told Them To Do
NASA ban on Chinese scientists ‘inaccurate’: lawmaker (Update), PhysOrg
“However, Wolf’s office issued a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday seeking to correct an article on the matter that first appeared Friday in The Guardian newspaper, as well as NASA’s stance. “Unfortunately, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, as is, it appears, the guidance provided by NASA Ames staff to the attendees,” said the letter. The law “primarily restricts bilateral, not multilateral, meetings and activities with the Communist Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies,” it said. “It places no restrictions on activities involving individual Chinese nationals unless those nationals are acting as official representatives of the Chinese government.” Wolf said NASA officials may have believed that the move was needed because of extra temporary restrictions on foreign nationals after a potential security breach by a Chinese citizen at a NASA facility in Virginia earlier this year.”
Second Kepler Science Conference Statement from the Science Organizing Committee
“In late March, 2013, NASA, in response to Federal legislation, imposed a moratorium on visits to NASA facilities by citizens of several nations, including China. The legislation in question was initially crafted by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) to reflect national security concerns, with further modifications and restrictions added to the 2013 bill. The Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC) of the Second Kepler Science Conference (KSC2) learned about this moratorium in late September, as the final agenda was being constructed, when 6 of our Chinese colleagues who preregistered for the KSC2 had their registrations denied.”
Keith’s note: Given the relentless investigations, letters, and outright nasty badgering that Rep. Wolf has given NASA over this issue, it is small wonder that the agency made this decision. After all, Rep. Wolf had already ordered investigations into previous Chinese participation in NASA meetings and ordered NASA to do overhauls of various online servers and facility access procedures after a Chinese national was found with porn on his laptop. Now Wolf sends NASA a letter criticizing the agency for taking his rants and demands seriously. Its hard to figure out just what this guy does or does not want NASA to do.
In his letter to Bolden – supposedly sent about this meeting and Chinese nationals – Wolf veers from one topic to another – and does a copy/paste of text from earlier rants – clearly demonstrating that he has a vendetta against NASA – and Ames staff in particular. He will use whatever happens to be on his desk or in his waste basket to throw at them with the hope that something will stick.
Wolf Letter to NASA’s Bolden Correcting Record on Restrictions Involving Chinese Nationals
“In one troubling example, last month, The Wall Street Journal reported on a Space Act Agreement between Ames and Google’s executives to use taxpayer-subsidized airplane fuel intended for military aircraft for personal travel by Google’s leadership. A dubious scientific data collection scheme appears to have been developed as an excuse for this preferential treatment for these executives.”
– Astronomers Dump on NASA About China When Congress Is To Blame, earlier post
– Attn Frank Wolf: Bo Jiang Had Porn – Not Secrets – on His Laptop, earlier post
– Wolf Addresses Arrest at Dulles Airport of Chinese National Potentially Involved in NASA Langely Security Violations, earlier post
– Congress Vs NASA on China (Home Alone with Wolf and Bolden), earlier post
– Bad Research By Rep. Wolf’s Staff
– Wolf to Bolden: Disinvite Those Chinese Visitors, earlier post
– Rep. Wolf’s China Witch Hunt Resumes (Update), earlier post
Pending any real verifiable agreements with China in which they are actually forced not to use NASA gained insights for the purpose of military industrialization and manufacture, China should no be allowed to engage in exchanges of next generation technology generated by America & partners to the ISS or other programs. I don’t hear much about England trying to put up it’s own space station and operating a space flight program exclusive to their own nation, but China does that. I’m all for trading with China but the market manipulation strategies along with other issues entailing military espionage is a major issue in our working with them. We were able to work things out with Russia, in an equal partnership where both US and Russia were invested. From a standpoint of national pride as Russia recovers and begins to regain a firm footing, competition from highly nationalistic countries is looming in the future. They are more than likely to abandon US partnerships and use space how and when they see fit, not at the determination of the US, to that end it is important to be wary of giving them the keys to the sky when we have not even established any permanent resources in space. No matter how anyone looks at it we still have a little, if not a huge edge in space flight technology and research, and handing that over on a platter to a competitor who would willingly and joyfully be the allocator of orbits and trajectories is idiocy of the highest order. I don’t think NASA or the US government would be too happy to pay a space flight administration tax to any foreign entity. UN treaties are nice, but when it comes to reality, a utopian statement is typically over-ridden when profits are clearly to be made and political agenda’s bolstered.
Given that the Chinese are collaborating with both Russia and ESA, and NASA is also collaborating with the two, how do we prevent China from gaining the knowledge they need? You may argue that NASA has agreements with both ESA and Russia that forbids transfers of NASA technology to China, but that is very much hiding head in the sand. To a tech capable country like China, engineers really don’t need all the details to figure out how to work things out. What they need is experience and lessons of failure. They can simply present what they try to do in an open forum and someone in the audience may just say, no no, we tried that before and it won’t work. That will save them a lot of effort and time. There is simply no way to forbid Russians or Germans from attending conferences even if NASA engineers are banned from attending.
Yes, we do have an edge in space technology, and that edge may just erode as our economic edge. What will happen to our policy when we loose our edge some time later, given that the average age of Chinese national space agency engineers is 30 something, while what is that of NASA?
The other question I want to ask is, do we really enjoy security from having a slight edge over other countries in space technology? I have my doubts because it is always much easier to destroy things than building them. China may not have the capability to build things as sophisticated as ISS, but I am sure they have the capability to shoot it down. Ultimately, should our ISS be safer if they also have something valuable there that we can shoot down too?
We cannot prevent China from anything they have the time, people and resources to accomplish any endeavor. As to Russia and ESA security protocols if they wish to open the hen house to the fox, that is their choice, sure that could be the downstream leak, but it doesn’t mean that NASA has complied or given authorization to what equates to anti social behavior.
You are so right about the average age of Senior scientists and engineers, many are both senior in age and experience, and it’s not often you find one senior in experience and not age. There are a few factors involved in that situation, as I found while down at NASA JSC, the inconsistency in funding, and regular cancellations have to sum total effects. 1. Preventing Staff from making a pay scale that would make them able to retire comfortably 2. Limiting growth
With out initiatives like the moon shot, NASA has no mandate to grab students who are not the top 10% of their graduating class, and also selectivity of that 10% is very high. The result is quite a few young engineers and scientists cycle through NASA then after gaining some title find higher paying jobs elsewhere, and there are quite a few elsewhere jobs paying well. Those individuals also witness what I did, and that is senior level positions typically require a death or age related disease, which is sad for all parties involved.
At the beginning of the space race students who were not the top of the top, who really appreciated the job they were given the opportunity to have, at that time NASA was not a resume filler it was in fact a life goal and aspiration.
I would say emphatically YES! Through space flight and classified military operations VIA the shuttle and other US systems, we have had and used the means to provide global security, far from perfect by any means it’s better means of intelligence than any other method prior. The US has been able to interdict many dangerous forces that had the potential to damage American interests around the globe and that is great so long as the tools are used to protect freedom. Freedom being the greatest form of security.
I think in some ways the Russian & American competition to the moon and also space stations had to do with the fear of someone getting space based nukes in operation. Now it’s becoming a concern about directed laser technology, knocking out competitors communications & spy satellites. Since both governments and corporations have access, governments who wish to maintain secrecy are likely to put assets in place to disable corporate tools. The new space race is likely to be more complicated than just simple national pride, as some multi national conglomerates may be doing things in space that ire most if not all the governments that play host to them. Functionally speaking with space based technology, not just extreme air craft like the space station, (which isn’t exactly in space as much as it’s in the further most regions of the the Earth’s Atmosphere) you can see an enemy preparing to fire before they are ready, as such getting the drop on someone is going to be more and more difficult (movement to intercept is much more easy to detect in space). Then the question becomes what’s the retaliatory response for shooting at someone’s space assets? Sounds like a good Saturday Matinee movie, WAR IN SPACE space space….
Can the US stop retired scientists and engineers to work in China to supplement their pensions.
I read there are retired engineers from Japan working in China.
Also there are hundreds of engineers from Ukraine work there too.
Last but not lease there are lay off engineers working in China.
Is Frank Wolf:
a. anti China?
b. anti NASA?
c. or anti both China and NASA?
We have to treat him differently depending on the answer.
Given Wolf’s congressional district there is a chance he can be defeated. Give early, give often