NASA Is Now Censoring Its Videos. So Is Boeing
In this video #NASA has blurred one specific screen on the @Boeing CST-100 simulator. Why? https://t.co/CucSmx6rud pic.twitter.com/SQ1lIZ7N13
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) April 30, 2016
@NASAWatch Boeing also blurs part of the attitude indicator. pic.twitter.com/UA7TFWn0dF
— Super Grover (@Super_Grover) April 30, 2016
Keith’s note: These are the pictures with the blurred display (lower right of astronaut) 1 and 2. Yet this NASA image is not blurred. But wait Boeing blurs part of another screen that NASA does not blur. What are they hiding – and why are some things
“blurable” by NASA and others by Boeing? Newsflash: Space.com has unblurred photos of the control panels. The Washington Post photo is not blurred. Neither is the photo in the Christian Science Monitor. Quick: throw these scoundrels in jail.
But wait: If you go to this NASA KSC Flickr image you can see it is not blurred on the simulator or the instructor’s screen. There many other photos on the Flickr page that have not been blurred. So why blur it in a Youtube video, NASA/Boeing?
If there are reasons to blur something (proprietary/security) then fine. But shouldn’t the things that are blurred/not blurred be handled the same way in all images not one way or another – or yet another – depending on which image you are looking at? If there is something that should not be made public then clearly not everyone is on the same page as to what it is. What is really funny is that you cannot read the words on the unblurred screens – the ones with diagrams which are much more revealing. The screen that is blurred is simply lines of text. Go figure.
(sigh) This is what the inside of the CST-100 really looks like. Not sure why NASA and Boeing are afraid to show people. Lots of blinking lights, etc.
Maybe if they see that the panel is legible, or that it could be legible with some image processing they blur it, otherwise they leave it alone? Or the contents could be released by different departments, and some care less than others about blurring.
Maybe it’s information that could give away some kind of advantage to Boeing’s competitors?
Or some kind of mock data that they don’t want to risk journalists extrapolating wild speculations with?
Or maybe they’re training for a mission that hasn’t been publicly announced?
Auuuugh! Now I wanna know! And that last picture, on the bottom right, even more blurring, what are they trying to hide there!?
When you blur things you prompt people to want to know why it was blurred. If they had just left it alone no one would have noticed.
ITAR is the most likely explanation. It is an extremely vague law, open to widely varying interpretations about what information can be released, and has generated so many stupid, inconsistent and idiotic policies throughout the space industry, even after the recent revisions in the law. Easier to blur the screen than to explain to your boss and your company’s lawyers why you let something slip through. Spacecraft telemetry and commands are certainly covered by ITAR. You cannot even sketch a design concept on the back of a cocktail napkin at some space conference without running afoul of ITAR.
The sketch on the napkin probably isn’t covered by ITAR. But, as you point out, that law isn’t a marvel of clarity. Many employers (or their lawyers) will tell you not to make the sketch, because they aren’t 100% sure what’s covered, and it couldn’t hurt to be careful. (Actually, it can.)
I’ve been told by someone who ought to know, that telemetry isn’t covered. Commands definitely are. I think I’ve seen a pattern. Information on what a spacecraft can do is ok to distribute. Information on how you made a spacecraft do that is restricted.
Possible orbits of certain satellites that some should not know about perhaps?
A ploy to get people talking?
It looks like a Unix directory listing. Maybe some piece of software crashed and the “astronauts” are having to debug as part of their training. Not exactly confidence boosting.
The way it’s blurred, you can’t really tell. But I see a table (probably ascii) with three columns, the first of which is fixed-length. A time-ordered list of commands looks like that (time, command stem, parameters.) But then, a lot of other things look like that as well.
If its commercial? That is, the CST and the simulator are bought and paid for with Boeing money, then I’m not sure why they need to share anything with the public?
If it is NASA bought and paid for, then the information should be public.
Not sure exactly where the lines are for ‘Commercial Crew’.
Totally agree. But if there are reasons to blur something shouldn’t the things that are blurred/not blurred be handled the same way in all images not one way or another or yet another depending on which image you are looking at? If there is something that should not be made public then clearly not everyone is on the sam page as to what it is. WHat is really funny is that you cannot read the words on the unblurred screens – the ones with diagrams. The screen that is blurred is simply lines of text.
My guess would be something export control/ITAR related. Spacecraft commanding is ITAR controlled, and spacecraft commanding is sort of what a control panel on CST-100 would be about. That also explains the inconsistency. Every institution and company has their own interpretation (or degree to which they err on the side of caution.)
Perhaps but you can’t ready any of the panels in the video – or in the pictures. So why blur something that cannot be read in the first place?
It doesn’t have to make sense if ITAR is involved. The regulations are quite vague in some respects. A usual response from institutions and companies is to say nothing even potentially problematic is allowed unless someone goes to a significant and inconsistently defined effort to prove it is OK. Given the choise between blurring a screen or proving to some corporate lawyers that it is unreadable without blurring, what would you do? Or, more to the point, could you imagine someone blurring it, because that seemed like the easiest thing to do? Of course this is all hypothetical. I have no idea if ITAR is the issue. That’s just a theory which seems to explain the data.
I’d guess this happens at a much lower level than perhaps you are imagining? At the level of a low-level manager simply taking every precaution.
I’m sure you’re right. The pattern I’ve seen is that a senior manager finds out about some law or regulation and tells someone to make sure the company (or lab) doesn’t end up in court. Some middle manager turns that into some policies and procedures. Then low level managers (or just people doing useful jobs) realize they have two choices: Getting formal approval (which can require lots of time and effort) or just taking precautions/being overly cautions.
Someone else mentioned that this could be a privacy issue (employee test results during a training exercise) rather than ITAR. It could. The above pattern applies to just about anything a company can get in legal trouble over.
Both Boeing and SpaceX have the right under their contracts with NASA to keep almost anything proprietary even if it involves NASA-purchased missions.
Also, Boeing was hit with some big fines for ITAR violations a while back and is probably hyper-sensitive.
Now you are trying to hold multiple organizations for consistency? Just too much to ask.
That panel tells you where the UFOs are so you don’t run into them.
Hey, get real. They’re just upset that they’re running Windows 3.11 and are ashamed to show you The Screendump Of Death.
I’m going to suggest something that might seem a little far-fetched but
(a) to my former instructor’s eye (having spent nearly ten years in training simulations at NASA-JSC)
and
(b) having spent nearly ten years inside the envelope of NASA’s bureaucracy
it’s almost believable.
The lines-of-entries screen in question appears to resemble rather closely the shuttle’s fault message display (display99 if my memory is still working). [If not that, then it (theoretically) might be an instructor page listing of inserted malfunctions, but that’s a major stretch.] And, the ADI page would be displaying the vehicle’s attitude information. Another one of the screens suggests that the simulation in progress is a rendezvous and docking approach.
So, here’s a leap of an explanation for the blurring (but not the inconsistency, of course): the training records of particular crew members in given simulations reflect the crew’s individual performance and so are not meant to be made public. NASA, in its infinite desire to keep things proper, perhaps tried to blur out (by some dreamed up over-arching rule engine) the displays that show any evidence of the crew member’s performance in said simulation. The ADI data might show how out of alignment the piloting is, and the list of fault messages might (somehow…in somebody’s mind) reflect their behavior or such, which is to say their performance in said simulation.
As I said, a reach. I suspect commercial propriety is more likely, but…an alternative.
Hmmm, I’m missing at least one of the references in Keith’s image:
– The Martian
– Tatooine (?) sunrise.
– Star Destroyer?
– (Original display)
– Alien or Aliens (dropship screen?)
– ??
– DS9 LCARS
– Atari Star Wars Arcade (or a clone?)
– Hal, 2001
– Space Invaders
– Star Trek Enterprise-A
– (Original display)
– Kerbal homepage
– NASAWatch homepage
– Apollo guidance computer display keyboard (DSKY-AGC).
As we are going commercial space, I expect to see a lot more blurring, missing info, etc. as private companies are very possessive of their proprietary property. However, once something blurred out, it gets a lot of attention like Area 51 syndrome. People are curious and without an answer from official sources, then anyone can say anything what goes on there (who’s going to tell them they are wrong?).
Will Boeing go glass cockpit design like SpaceX showed before inside a mockup of human-rated Dragon? Though shown are trainers, it seems to me there’s a trend towards all screens and no hard switches. Obviously have combination of both to better actuate during vibrations or tactial feel instead of having to take eyes away from something else and specifically focus on a certain spot on the screen.
I humorously see Shelby on the screens, so far his ad hasn’t appeared on my NW, I’m now getting SteelMaster quonset huts for sale (no idea why they target me as I have zero interest in those).
I was surprised when they blurred the viewing windows in the O&C Building here at KSC with translucent film so no one could see the work being done on Orion (presumably for ITAR reasons). I wrote the Center Director to ask if they really believed the terrorists would build an Orion capsule and attack us with it. He essentially confirmed that they were indeed concerned about the technology falling into the hands of terrorists. I bet the real reason was for Lockheed to conceal something proprietary.
Your ‘shopped image is now my desktop!