Vice President Pence Voids NASA Hardware Warranty (Update)
Keith’s update: Official NASA response to the Pence “Do Not Touch” Photo: “The ‘do not touch’ signs are there as a day-to-day reminder, including the one visible on the titanium Forward Bay Cover for the Orion spacecraft. Procedures require the hardware to be cleaned before tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, so touching the surface is okay. Otherwise, the hardware would have had a protective cover over it like the thermal heat shield, which was nearby.”
So in other words “do not touch” means “you can touch”. Only at NASA.
Keith’s note: Unlike some aspects of this White House Vice President Pence has a sense of humor. Well played.
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Bob Cabana considers a career move WRT @VP Pence #NASA pic.twitter.com/OQtb6iZ1mX
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) July 7, 2017
Keith’s note: KSC Director Bob Cabana had one thing to do during the walk through … Larger view.
Mike Pence Touches NASA Equipment Labeled ‘Do Not Touch’, Becomes Instant Meme, Gizmodo
Rule #1 of protecting stuff: Never assume everyone reads the very important information you put on a sign, when the thing you’re trying to prevent is very easy to do while ignoring the sign.
If you don’t want non-technical VIPs touching your stuff, put it in a place where non-technical VIPs won’t be in arms’ reach. Simple as that.
Or make all of the visitors wear “bunny suits” and tell them it’s a “clean room”. 😉
One of my labs was a class 100 cleanroom with signs all over – I would sometimes get muddy shoe prints on the floor from someone walking in. So we put new locks on the door where only appropriate people had keys
“Never assume everyone reads the very important information you put on a sign, when the thing you’re trying to prevent is very easy to do while ignoring the sign.”
We have had a janitor: walk past a tensa-barrier barricade WITH WARNINGS, clearly marked, take tape off of a door labeled “TEST IN PROCESS, WARNING, LASER IN USE, DO NOT ENTER” And walk right in.
So do NOT assume people actually READ THE SIGNS
I know someone who had an experience with a Tesla coil, a two-meter long bolt of artificial lightning, and a jogger ducking under the yellow caution tape he’d put up. Signs don’t keep people from doing something stupid; they just make sure people can’t complain too much when they get yelled at for doing something stupid.
I’m curious. Does anyone know what the part is?
Apparently part of Orion’s forward bay cover. It’s at the top of the capsule, protecting the parachutes. Jettisoned before splashdown.
(That is, the sloped part he’s touching. I think the top ring is just part of the stand that the FBC is attached to.)
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
At some point I am certain that NASA will say that the sign was there by mistake or that it was supposed to have been removed. That, of course, would beg the question as to why the sign was on this hardware in the first place.
If it’s that critical, why is the sign taped on? PhotoShop fake news?
Pence has a sense of humor about it. You should try it too! 🙂
Kapton tape, even launched in spacecraft, nearly no outgassing.
No glue residue?
That’s what they advertise.
And I always wonder about those claims. Things like outgassing are rarely measured in space. Spacecraft with the correct instruments are very rare. So most of this is based on faith in laboratory experiments (and ignoring the fact that other experiments show radiation and hard UV flux can affect outgassing.)
I saw some really surprised faces when some cruise results from Rosetta were presented. They did actually have an instrument which could measure outgassing, and the results were worse than some people had imagined and much better than outers had assumed.
Maybe Cabana told him the same thing as the NASA response (“Just there to avoid casual contact – we’re going to have to clean off the tape residue anyway, so go ahead and touch it”.”). Perhaps some person in the news industry can ask around.
If a NASA guy tells me that I can touch some flight hardware, I’d touch the heck out of it…
Actually it’s pretty common when you have multiple teams using the same space and equipment, not just when VIPs visit. Things you can move vs things you must not move.
And that’s what the sign likely means, since this isn’t a clean room. Do Not Move Without Approval From The “Owner” rather than literally Do Not Touch.
It actually means “Do not touch”. Pence should have read the sign. Had there been no sign, it would have been different. Had he asked, and been told it was OK, that would be different. Lead by example.
Oh please! What space enthusiast- myself included- could resist?
Pence is demonstrably a bit of a putz- but by doing this he is certifiably a Space Nut.
Welcome to the fraternity!
Do we know no one said it was OK to touch?
Of course we don’t know. I will say one thing about the people shown in the photo. It is very likely that none of them were sufficiently familiar with the technical issues, to actually know if it was ok or not. The director of KSC may know a great many things, but that probably doesn’t include whether or not a part was going to be cleaned later, or needed to be at all, or had already been cleaned, etc.
True, but I would be very surprised if the individual responsible for that room, who would know, was not present and actually guiding the tour.
Yes, but he’d be in a very awkward position, and one his bosses shouldn’t put people in. If such a person were asked, by the center director or the vice president, if he could make an exception, would he really feel comfortable saying, “No”? If someone much, much more senior said touching would be ok without asking him, would he feel comfortable jumping in and saying, “No, actually, touching isn’t ok.”?
Ideally, he would feel comfortable doing so (and a really well-run organization would make sure of that, but few do.) If it were _really_ important, he’d probably do the right thing anyway. But most of the time, I suspect such a person would feel intimidated enough just to go along.
Do you really think that NASA is that dysfunctional of an organization? I suspect the other option was more likely, that is was OK to do it just as they said in the NASA statement on it.
I can’t speak for NASA centers, but in the aerospace industry, yes. There are some companies which are very serious about, “the boss is always right”, “never make the company or the boss look bad” and “never contradict the boss in public”. I’d be surprised if NASA centers were totally free of those attitudes.
As for this attitude being dysfunctional, that’s a separate debate. I suspect we’d be arguing on the same side of that one. I’m simply pointing out the attitude does exist, and it might affect how a lower-level engineer would behave around the director of JSC and the Vice President of the United States.
I can accept a implied clause after the “Do not touch.” For example, “Do not touch, because I don’t want you to slip, trip or whatever and actually knock it over.” I.e. cases where gently touching the object wouldn’t actually hurt, but someone didn’t want to run the risk of less gentle contact. But exceptions to “do not touch” ought to come from the person who made the rule or understands the reasons behind it.
So given that statement than this picture was basically released to embarrass the VP. I am glad he is taking it in good humor as Keith noted.
And about half the stupid things Vice President Quayle said were actually misquotes or intended as jokes. In that sort of job, people shouldn’t just avoid doing and saying stupid things, they should avoid doing and saying things which can be used to make them look stupid.
I agree. Unfortunately no one here knows the story behind the picture. I may well be that the NASA representative encouraged him to touch the part as part of an effort to get him to buy into Orion and the SLS. But since no one posting here was there we just don’t know and are making assumptions.
The guy basically admitted he made a mistake! What’s the point of assuming that what we see in the picture isn’t exactly what it is? Someone touching something marked “do not touch.”
I didn’t see that statement. Do you have a link to it?
I’m not sure I saw that statement. The picture is an accurate depiction of what happened, and we as the public have every right to know. The VP made a mistake. Other people might simply deny it, or claim they had been told it was OK. To Pence’s credit, he admitted that he was at fault.
I saw stuff liked that labeled inexactly the same way when I worked at NASA. Just sayin’
Touching flight hardware is the biggest no-no there is. OTOH, the floor manager should have erected a rope or chain barrier to prevent anyone from getting that close, there is always someone who leans way too far in to look at something and falls over.
The oil/dirt/moisture in human hands imprints finger marks into the surface of machined Titanium. Anyone that has worked with the stuff knows that you have to glove up before handling.
That sign REALLY MEANT do not touch, but NASA does not want to upset the Administration. SAD!
Later edit: I’ll take back my first point. The NASA “we were going to clean it anyway” statement does describe the part as “the titanium Forward Bay Cover”. I’m not sure why they would do that, but I guess they did.
However, after some on-line searching and going over guides to machining titanium, I’ll stick to what I said about machining it and its chemistry. It’s a pain to machine, but not because of any sort of chemistry or gloves-only handling requirements. To quote wikipedia, “titanium metal and its alloys oxidize immediately upon exposure to air… it forms a passive oxide coating that protects the bulk metal from further oxidation… Atmospheric passivation gives titanium excellent resistance to corrosion…”
Original text:
I’m afraid this sounds like fake news to me.
First, why do you think the part he touched is titanium? I haven’t read anything about that. Given it’s location on the Orion capsule, it would receive some of the least heating during reentry and not much in terms of mechanical loads. That means titanium is an unlikely material. Also, it doesn’t look like titanium in the photograph, although that could be the lighting.
Second, I’ve milled titanium. It’s been a while, but no gloves or special precautions were required.
Third, while bare, metallic titanium is chemically reactive, it doesn’t stay that way for long. Exposed to air, especially humid, Florida air, the surface oxidizes rather rapidly. You get a layer of titanium oxide, which is pretty inert, chemically. That’s sometimes considered an advantage; it amounts to a free, anti-corrosive coating.
So what you wrote does not match more-or-less everything I know about the vehicle or titanium.
Its not just Titanium. It’s Forward Bay door is a Titanium core covered with composite thermal tiles.
http://spaceflight101.com/s…
‘The majority of external systems are located in the Forward Bay atop the forward bulkhead, installed around the crew tunnel leading up to the forward docking interface.
Installed around the pressure vessel and its various external systems are composite backshell panels with titanium honeycomb cores that provide primary thermal control to the spacecraft as well as micro-meteoroid orbital debris (MMOD) protection using laminate panels. A total of 49 composite panels make up Orion’s outer shell with additional thermal protection layers installed
on top. A total of 970 TUFI coated AETB-8 thermal tiles with Space Shuttle heritage are installed on Orion’s backshell to protect the internal equipment from heating during re-entry. These tiles consist of silica glass fibers and have excellent thermal characteristics.
The forward bay is protected by a dedicated cover also using composite materials (see section on Orion’s
parachutes). In the aft section, Orion’s core structure interfaces with the Heat Shield Support Structure consisting of a titanium skeleton that holds the heat shield.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the NASA guide was explaining just hold complex, and expensive, it is.
I might have left out “critical” and “space”, since that’s implied and should be obvious. But then again, assuming something is obvious could be a mistake. I also would not have put quotation marks around the do not touch part. Technically, the quotes mean it is not something the author says or believes, or is even necessarily true. When you put quotation marks around something, it means you are using a word or phrase someone else used, with no implications about accuracy. So I’d ding the sign’s author for some style and grammar points. That doesn’t mean it was just slapped on for show.
I wonder how many news days this will fill.
“It’s OK; I’m a Republican.”
If I had a dollar for every time my greasy thumb prints wound up on some space hardware…
Ha! So it WAS you!
Hahaha!
At least VP Pence showed a sense of humor about it, unlike the Kerry Campaign when the photo of him in a bunny suit was released.
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
Right Stuff, Wrong Staff: John Kerry Visits NASA and Blows a Photo Op
By Keith Cowing
Posted Wednesday, July 28, 2004
“Bumbling by Kerry’s staff, and a press corps itching for something to
make fun of, and a perfect photo opportunity turns into a media
nightmare. The net loser? NASA.”
“Alas, the Kerry people see conspiracies everywhere and immediately pointed a finger at NASA suggesting that the photos had been “leaked” – for what purpose they don’t say – but clearly they imply some sinister intent on NASA’s part.”
Yep. Here’s one we agree about.
A little off topic, but:
When I saw that picture, I recalled a visit I made to the Cairo Museum in Egypt, and couldn’t help also comparing a trip to the Met Museum in NYC a few weeks ago.
At the Met, docents are very hyper about touching. In fact, they required me to either carry my backpack like a suitcase, or have it in front of me; not on my back or slung over a shoulder. All objects of course are carefully labeled and behind glass or, in the case of art, there is some distance between the wall and the observer. Asking, I was told that sometimes people turn and inadvertently the backpack touches the art.
OK, I thought, rare, but OK. I’m very happy not to see fingerprints on my favorite Gainsborough or Reynolds.
In Cairo, though, there are priceless artifacts on the open floor. Most have a small card describing them, but here’s the thing: these pieces are millennia old and many are covered with fingerprints from visitors.
I couldn’t help touching something that was crafted by a human hand perhaps 3000 years ago, all the while knowing that this was not a good thing to do. Still, could not resist.
Human nature, I suppose. Still, I do wish those Egyptians would take better care.
I cage my hardware at NASA with a padlock, but I still get people who come through the lab sticking their fingers between the cage holes in the hope of touching flight hardware. It still has a certain allure to it. After you handle it for so many years you forget.