Congress Vs NASA on China (Home Alone with Wolf and Bolden)
NASA locks out foreigners, orders security review following concerns of Chinese spying, Fox News
“NASA has locked its facilities to foreigners, disabled online research databases and ordered a complete review of access by foreign nationals to its facilities, as allegations swirled of foreign spies within the space agency. In addition to the security review, Bolden announced that he had closed down a publicly available NASA technical reports database due to the risk of confidential information leaking out. A message on the site indicates that “until further notice, the NTRS system will be unavailable for public access. We … anticipate that this site will return to service in the near future.”
Congressman: NASA intentionally skirted rules, Daily Press
“Robert D. Wyman, a spokesman for NASA Langley, did not return phone calls this week seeking comment on Wolf’s assertion that Langley officials intentionally circumvented the rules. Calls to NASA headquarters in Washington were routed to Allard Beutel, the chief of the NASA communications office there. Beutel did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday. Timothy Allen, a spokesman with the National Institute of Aerospace, declined to comment on Wolf’s assertions that Langley conspired with NIA to get around the rules. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” he said.”
Keith’s 20 March note: I asked LaRC PAO the following questions:
“- Was this shutdown in response to a request from Rep. Wolf? If not, then who requested the shutdown of this website?
– Was there any technical material posted on the NTRS website that violated ITAR regulations or any other NASA/government security requirements?”
LaRC declined to answer these specific questions and would only say “As you know, the NTRS system is unavailable for public access. NASA is reviewing the sites content to make sure it’s consistent with the U.S. export control laws, regulations and review processes that are in place.”
Clearly the fact that NASA took the extreme action of pulling the entire website down – one that had been online for decades – means that they either found something on there that did not belong and/or could not affirm that all applicable rules were being followed. Someone had to make the decision to take this action. Either Rep. Wolf asked them or someone to do this or someone at NASA decided to do so on their own. LaRC PAO is unable or unwilling to admit that this is the case. Isn’t it rather odd for NASA PAO not to respond with comments in support of what the agency’s administrator said in open congressional hearings? Meanwhile, neither NASA or the House Appropriations Committee has bothered to post Bolden’s prepared statement.
At today’s hearing Rep. Wolf gave the NASA OIG and “F” grade for their ARC and LaRC investigations and suggested to Bolden that the agency needs a new IG. Wolf also lectured Bolden about blind dissidents and human organ trafficking in China. Wolf asked if Bolden would meet with various Chinese activists/dissidents at NASA HQ. Bolden said he would if he could ask them a question as to why Congress prohibits any interaction by NASA with China’s space agency. When Bolden talked about the progress of moving the Arc Jet facility from JSC to ARC Wolf said “just make sure the spies are not involved out there” (i.e. at ARC).
Probably the most important thing to emerge from this hearing was the fact that both Wolf and Bolden liked the two “Home Alone” films.
Keith’s 21 March update: here is the Prepared Statement by Charles Bolden Before House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. NASA still has not released it (but Congress has). Do a search for the word “China”. Nothing. NASA really does not want to talk about this.
– NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post
– Former NASA/NIA Employee Arrested by FBI Trying to Leave U.S., earlier post
Do readers think that spying by China is a problem for NASA (and the USA) is a national security problem?
From prior articles, it seems the attitude of many readers is not to care about whether China is spying on NASA or any other technologically oriented agency…
And that the raising of the issue is somehow partisan alarmist politics…
What is exactly the position of Nasawatch readers?
Before we debate strategy, we need to consider our goals. The probability of planetary destruction from nuclear war is a good deal higher than the likelihood of it occurring by asteroid impact. Those of us who lived through the Cold War would not care to see another nuclear arms race and another generation living minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
It’s tempting to see all our problems as being due to “enemies” stealing our secrets, and the solution as nationalistic xenophobia. But if our goal is not to win a nuclear war, but rather to avoid one, then our strategy should be to build bridges rather than walls. In the case of the US and Russia, we have never used NASA as an instrument of war. Apollo was a symbolic substitute for war. ISS did it one better, using collaboration in space as a way to build understanding and confidence. Once you have worked directly with someone from another country on a common but challenging goal, as I have with a colleague from Russia, it is difficult to think about annihilating them and all their families in a nuclear holocaust.
China has the world’s largest population and its second largest economy. If we choose to encourage armed conflict with them there will be no winners, and there may well be no survivors. If we decide instead to try to find ways to solve our disagreements in the sphere of diplomacy and live with them as fellow citizens of the world, then we need to build trust and confidence. A rational way to do this would be to invite China to join the ISS program.
China is as capitalist as the US. The real competition between the US and China is economic, not ideological or military. If a Chinese company is interested in US technology they would not go to NASA, they would just offer to manufacture state-of-the-art products for US companies that are looking for short-term profits. NASA collaboration with China would not be a significant source of information that would increase either the economic or military potential of China, and might help, in some small way, to reduce the likelihood of a generation of superpower conflict.
I would note that the Chinese already have the technical documentation on everything NASA has done. They’ve been getting it for quite some time. How much do you want us to do for them?
Also, the Chinese do not feel the same way a political correct westerner does. They are trained during their basic schooling that the west has cheated them, abused them, and is always tryng to deny their rightful place on the planet. Have you ever seen the movie “The Sand Pebble”? It was done many years ago by my movie hero Steve McQueen. If not, you should see it and then you will understand where the Chinese are coming from in their nationalism. Think of it this way: what if the Chinese Navy regualarly sailed up the MIssissippi river as far as St. Louis and enforced Chinese trade rules and practices? And if we disagreed, shot us down? If you think about it, I think you will agree with me that the Chinese *generally*, not all of them but most of them, think that the west owes them some makeup transactions. Also reference the British Opium wars in China. That war is as fresh as yesterday to them.
The only thing I can say in the US defense is that after the Boxer War which China lost, they were fined for the damage and expenses they “caused” to the west. The U.S.A. was the *only* country that gave the money back to them and told them to found a university with it. Check the founding date of Bejing University (the one where Mr. Jiang marticulated from).
Ralphy,
The Sand Pebbles was a movie released in 1966 about events in 1926. The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-West uprising by a single faction of Chinese that happened between 1898 and 1901. The opium wars were fought in the early- to mid-19th century. I doubt very much that the average Chinese person today could tell you those dates, or that “That war is as fresh as yesterday to them.” These things are absolutely meaningless with respect to China, and the world at large, today.
Consider that in the US, in 1926, Al Capone was at the height of his “career” and prohibition was in full swing. In 1899 the southern US states passed laws to disenfranchise blacks, and life expectancies were: females 47.3, males 46.3, and blacks 33.0 years. Are facts like these at all relevant to the US today?
This sort of commentary can be very destructive. You don’t appear to have checked any dates/details, and your “logic” will no doubt be repeated by other people who won’t check either. So, you’re spreading
serious misinformation on what is quickly becoming a very touchy subject.
Steve
No I am not spreading mis-information. I participate in China on line defense forums, the economist.com on line which has a large number of Chinese postors and I have read of their nationalist training in their school system. And no, it wasn’t Fox News. *You* are sadly misinformed, not me. Those eras are kept alive in China and the greivances are prommulgated by their government. I very well know the dates of those eras. And I am telling you that it doesn’t make any difference. Their government keeps it alive. If it is becoming a touchy subject it is only because it is YOU who is “touchy” and wearing it on your shirt sleeve for somebody to brush up against. It is politcal correct thinking that led to the situation with China today. I don’t believe in discriminating against anybody but dleiberately inviting Chinese nationals to particpate in sensitive research and potentially by passing operating rules concerning such activities is beyond the pale. Please go bully somebody else.
China fought a costly war with the US in Korea within the memory of many still living, yet modern Chinese regard it as a mistake and most think no more of it than we do of Vietnam. But there is one thing all Chinese learn in school and most remember; the location of the national cemetery that holds the graves of the Flying Tigers, American volunteers killed defending China in the war they all remember, the war with Japan. China lost 20 million in all, more people than were killed in the Holocaust, almost 50 times the casualties the US suffered in World War II. And whatever tensions China may have with the US today, most Chinese still appreciate that in the time of their greatest crisis, America came to their aid.
I’m sorry if you feel bullied. I have worked with Chinese nationals here in Canada, and I have associates who have worked in China, in both cases involving Chinese people of all ages. I’ve also talked to both friends and family members who have visited China on vacation. All of these people have talked with me freely about life in modern China as they saw it. I guess the Chinese must have an effective method for fooling foreigners. I feel bad that I’m now going to have to go back to all of these people and inform them that they were mistaken in their observations of life in China, that it’s not like they told me; I know because Ralphy read some posts on a web site. Rest assured that I won’t bother you any more.
Vulture 4
Thanks for the reminder when we had courage and fought some wars as the good guys.
I think vulture4 has stated the situation correctly and concisely. The stance taken by some in the US, and Rep. Wolf in particular, may be intended as “protective,” but can just as readily be interpreted as antagonistic.
Building bridges is the way to go. The only difference between American people and Chinese people in today’s world is where they were born. The Cold War is over and only someone totally insane would want to restart it.
“China is as capitalist as the US. The real competition between the US and China is economic, not ideological or military.”
This reminded me of what I found on another forum:
“Adam Smith said that nations engaged in free trade were far less likely to go to war than mercantilists. You try to please your customers, not kill them.”
Though no guarentee there will be no war, leaders in the past have committed their nations to war for no sensible reason.
“China is as capitalist as the US. The real competition between the US and China is economic, not ideological or military.”
There is a significant ideological difference between the core principles of the USA and China. Ours are based upon Western democracy and a fairly open civilization. China has a significantly closed society and is certainly not democratic.
It is overstating the issue when you speak of a nuclear war or other large armed conflict. The battlefield here is not a muddy field as in WW1 or WW2.
This one is an economic war. It is played out in the boardrooms, the stock exchanges, and the internet.
This war is could be just as deadly as a nuclear war. (China’s environmental condition is pretty bad… Beijing air quality for example)
You may be somewhat correct in that China has adopted a Capitalistic system (for now). BUT it’s system is a statist derivative of that exercised in the USA.
There is a difference where the Central govt has a significant shareholder stake in all the major companies.
The US govt does not own over 50% of the stock of Apple / Microsoft / Boeing etc…
All of that said…
You presume that China wants to participate in the ISS program.
They may very well not want to do so.
They may want to develop their own system.
… I think they want to go it alone anyways.
Bilateral information exchange may not be in their self interest.
(Microsoft develops Office for the Mac while at the same time competing with Windows…)
Instead of inviting China, lets invite South Korea and India.
Both countries are :
highly technologically inclined,
open and free democracies,
have a properly enforced “Bill of Rights”,
have an independent judiciary, and
would love to join us.
AND we would still further the goals of peace as Japan and Korea have lots to talk about.
One more thing, NASA is a program funded by the American people to further the interests of the USA.
No matter what platitudes are imposed within, the Agency is in place so that the American people are able to benefits from it.
Curiosity has a US flag on it, not that of another country. Through it the American people are exploring Mars.
Each space shuttle had a US flag, even those carrying our friends from Korea, Isreal, and other nations.
There have been numerous unofficial communications regarding Chinese participation in ISS. China’s objective is to prove that it is accepted as “one of the club” of world leaders, which would be better served by being asked to join an international endevour, Obviously they would not ask officially unless it was clear there would be agreement, and currently that is not the case. Rebuffed, they have already anounced plans to invite other countries to join their program.
I think you are missing sight of the fact this is not only an issue of military technical competetiveness. Remember that NASA (via N.A.C.A.) was founded by Congress as much or more so to ensure American commercial technical competitiveness in aerospace as it was military aspects. As such, there are legitimate concerns about Chinese espionage of NASA irrespective of “national security” concerns.Regardless of how one may feel about the perception versus reality of military confrontations, there is no denying the reality of industrial confrontation between America and China and the reality of espionage and counter espionage associated with commmercial competition.I have no personal insight into the particulars of the allegations in this specific case, but to dismiss generic concerns about Chinese technological espionage as inconsequential would be naive and delusional.In the end, this is a matter of national policy for which it is the prerogative of Congress to set and the Executive branch to implement. It is not up to NASA to determine its own policies of international relations.
Like all of us, you are entitled to your opinion, but I’m curious as to why you, like so many others, specifically name China, and only China, in your comments. The logic in your post could easily apply to half the countries on the planet.
Given that China already has pretty much everything space/technical that the US has, mostly seemingly of their own deigns, what need have they for NASA stuff? I would have thought that those countries without a space program, or with a fledgling space program (North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc.), would be more likely to “spy” on NASA and/or similar sources of technical information and designs.
Does anybody think that China would discontinue or modify their Long March family of LVs based on data stolen from NASA (or anybody else), given how long and hard they’ve already worked on their own, successful hardware?
There is no hard evidence — that I’ve read of — to implicate Chinese espionage at NASA, but there is plenty of evidence that China has a lot that could benefit everyone in a collaboration of space activities. Those benefits would not be limited to space issues, and personally, I suspect that within a few years China could become a valuable ally of the US, a better ally than Russia has become (The Russian people still tend to be somewhat paranoid and non-trusting of foreigners, which is not surprising given that their country has been attacked 2 or 3 times a century for several hundred years of history).
I honestly wonder how much these recent public anti-Chinese allegations and comments are, in fact, working to make China into an enemy of the US, when they weren’t before.
“why you, like so many others, specifically name China, and only China, in your comments.”
Because China is the topic of discussion in this thread.
I’m quite sure there are other nations who are considered sources of industrial espionage, but so far that has been outside the scope of this specific topic, so I didn’t see the need to expand the discussion to make my point.
“There is no hard evidence — that I’ve read of — to implicate Chinese espionage at NASA,”
Nor that I am personally aware of either, but our lack of knowledge does not justify trivializing the concerns of people have more information on the subject that we do.
“…a better ally than Russia has become (The Russian people still tend to be somewhat paranoid and non-trusting of foreigners…”
Apply your own question to yourself. Why do you specifically name Russia and only Russia when this topic has so far not even been about Russia? I could understand if you are saying counter espionage should be a concern vis-a-vis other nations in general, but why did you single out one country that wasn’t even a subject of the conversation?
Quite aside from the limited topic of discussion so far regarding possible espionage policies of foreign governments, why do you make a generalized statement alleging a common character flaw in an entire culture of people? Do you have some personal experience to justify your conclusion that Russians as a people are notably more paranoid of foreigners than other people? I could understand drawing a conclusion about the relative friendliness or hostility of a foreign government on the basis their policies towards foreign relations as perceived from news reports, but what causes you to generalize your concerns to the population as a whole?
Bernardo,
I mentioned the Russians in the context of collaboration, and specifically collaborating with a country that was considered an enemy of the US at a previous point in time. I think events of the last quarter century show that collaboration can be a good thing to aim for, and if the US and China were to collaborate more than they currently do, I think both sides would benefit considerably. It’s one of those things that has to happen eventually, so why not now? I discussed collaboration in an
espionage thread because the two have a clear effect on one another.
My use of the word paranoid with respect to the Russians comes from reading history books. Although we remember the Cold War and tend to think of them as having been the bad guys, if you look at their history over the last few hundred years, as I mentioned above, then you can see the Russian people as having been victims over and over, which (according to historians) makes it hard for them to trust foreigners, which seems reasonable to me. The idea that this behavior is ingrained into the general population is something that never would have occurred to me. This idea, of course, is based on accepting the history books that I’ve read as reasonably correct; I should have added that qualifier above.
Steve
Although Chinese engines do not have quite the ISP of the highest performance US and Russian designs, the Long March 5 is a very thoughtful and efficient design, both in the launch vehicle and the processing flow and GSE. It is a little more expensive to operate than the Falcon and the Chinese have conceded as much, but there are certainly aspects of their operation we could learn from.
In fact commercial aircraft are already our largest manufactured export, and China is one of our best customers. By sabotaging trade relations with a major export customer Wolf is undermining the NACA (and still NASA) mission of creating high-tech exports and jobs in the commercial aircraft industry.
Obviously if a Chinese company wanted US manufacturing technology they would not send a graduate student to steal unclassified data that he himself was generating. They would simply offer to make high-tech products for American companies more concerned about short-term profits than American jobs. And they would find ample customers.
“Obviously if a Chinese company wanted US manufacturing technology they would not send a graduate student to steal unclassified data that he himself was generating. “
I’m not involved in the espionage business myself, so I don’t pretend to know what the right or ‘obvious’ techniques are.
But if you will please note, I clearly qualified my remarks that I do not have personal insight into this specific allegation of espionage, nor was I attempting to address it. My only point was that it is clearly unjustified for us laypeople here to dismiss as trivial generic concerns about foreign espionage constituting a detriment. Specifically, I was stating that in the general terms posited by the original commenter, foreign espionage of technology quite clearly occurs and quite clearly has a negative impact regardless of the presence or absence of a military confrontation. It is foolish to dismiss concern about foreign espionage as merely an issue of paranoia.
This was the NASA budget hearing. Without the Obama budget. Bolden said that CC will be down to 1-2 companies next year. I read that CR will allow NASA to move funds around. The sequester stays in place.
I hope that’s not true, but if so, Kickstarter DreamChaser anyone? Top level contributors get…?? take a guess, lol.
I think they’ll keep Dream Chaser if there is any possible way they can. NASA really, really wants a lifting body design. A space plane taxi. They are still grieving for Shuttle.
I think the most vulnerable program might be CST-100 since a lot of people think Boeing Corporate isn’t really all that into it. The engineers on the program are gung-ho but corporate HQ, maybe not so much.
These are things I’ve been hearing anyway…
Some in NASA might “really, really want a lifting body design”, but it’s not a requirement. If it were, US astronauts wouldn’t be routinely flying on Soyuz.
If DOD has the X-47 program still in development, and NASA really wants Dream Chaser, I wonder if any R&D transfer is applicable from one to the other; and if so, would both parties agree to it.
Saturn13 do u have a link to the full video? Also i’m not surprised that Bolden said nasa will downselectto 2 next year. Dreamchaser is on the chopping block!
Go back to the link for the hearing. They usually have archived hearings. He also said that if he did not get his request for CC it would be delayed. Also he said there might be 5 years of sequestration. The people that wanted to double the budget might have made them mad and they are going to cut it in half.
Seems like China has never had a significant global or regional military influence? Their influence seems to be mostly economic, securing natural resources, etc.. The issue of technology IP is probably an issue, but since we do a lot of technology manufacturing and to some extent R&D in China that line is increasingly blurred. Plus we currently have the need for well educated immigrants to create jobs, and the universities need the foreign tuition to make of for lack of domestic funding. I tend to think China is paranoid about the west generally due to the history of colonialism and the cold war. What all the cyber hacking is about, I’m guessing they’re trying to acquire intelligence about pro-democracy movements and stealing IP. If we have something that is truly important to national security or IP that is critical to business, then that should be locked down tight, but it seems dumb to hound postgraduate researchers if they are not being truly malicious (actively spying) since sharing results is part of the research process no?
It almost seems like we need to redefine “public domain.” Does it include the whole world, or everybody except China and few other countries, or just US citizens? Much, perhaps most, of what NASA generates is, by US law, in the public domain. Wasn’t it someone at NASA (during the Cold War) who wrote the sentence “We came in peace for all mankind“?
If any documents are deemed too sensitive for foreign nationals, then they should be appropriately tagged and stored starting from when their creation begins. Trying to “clean up” after the fact is not going to work; you simply can’t get the genie back into the bottle.
I’m Canadian — by definition a foreign national — and I have for many years requested/received and accessed on line hundreds of NASA documents. Both working from home (on-line) or in Washington (at the HQ History office) I have never been denied a document because I’m not American. Whenever I have encountered a document that was not in the public domain, it was very clear situation and I was referred to a different web site or office where I needed an “account” to sign in to, which was the end of the road for me. I don’t see how it could be any different for Bo Jiang or any other non-American without an “account.” So, either he was assigned a login/password, which should be easily checked, or someone was careless or negligent enough to have him learn their login/password.
For what it’s worth, I’ve spent hundreds of hours (at least) accessing the NTRS database and I have never encountered a road block from reading or downloading any documents. So I suspect taking it off line was a needless action.
Kinda like shutting the barn door after the horse has already left.
Whoever wants it, already has it.
Ralphy,
I suspect you’re absolutely right. If there is “a problem” then it’s no doubt been going on for a long time, and the “players” probably get switched regularly.
Hey, we finally found something for NASA KSC security to do instead of writing speeding tickets and hunting down new employees for stupid things. I have an Idea, let CD Cabana head the task instead of running KSC into the ground. Also NASA KSC security idiot Mark will have some thing intellegent to talk about for once.
The chance that there are scripts running, continuously downloading anything published on any US government website, is 100%. Taking down the website is futile.