Moon rocket info (1970) shredded for government secrecy

[DBoon]

From NASAwatch (not affiliated with NASA)

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/07/nasa_ksc_itar_r.html

NASA KSC ITAR Run Amok

Saturn V pictures are now ITAR Controlled, Sci.Space.History

"But then I got this message from a contact who worked at KSC: "However, just before we left KSC, a guy from the NASA Export Control Office (which is run by some contractor, maybe Analex?) came by our office on an "inspection" and told us we had to take down all the Saturn V drawings we had around ... now, these were just old NAA public relation drawings, plus a few commercially-purchased posters showing the Saturn V internals in very rough detail. He said they were all covered by ITAR and therefore had to be locked up! We kept telling him some were purchased at the Visitor Center Gift Shop, but he did not care. He ended up coming around with an armed security cop until we took them down and shredded them."

Editor's note: Check out all of this ITAR-violating goodness at MSFC. And this report online at Astronautix.com probably means a life sentence in prison for someone if the KSC ITAR Cops have their way. Meanwhile, I guess they will have to throw big bags over the restored (and publicly accessible) Saturn V's on display at JSC, MSFC, and KSC.

Also being discussed at Slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/07/30/0215204.shtml

ITAR are regulations restricting export of weaponry information - it goes beyond classified information to cover lots of technology with civilian use. Strong cryptography (such as used in your browser for secure Internet shopping) was ITAR controlled until a few years ago.

Even if this is just a case of a security guard gone overboard, it still boggles my mind that 40-year-old technology (much of it available in libraries for decades) would now be considered export-controlled.

[Spinzonner]

1. You wouldn't want Al Queda to get the plans to build a Saturn booster

would you

:sarcasm:

[Sapere aude]

2. Or the launch pad and block houses let alone the communications and a Houston flight center!

"Punjab we have a problem"

[eppur_se_muova]

3. How sad. My dad worked in the space program in the 60's and 70's and ...

NASA always went out of its way to let people know what it was doing, tour its facilities, etc. We used to have tons of surplus copies drawings and reports at our house -- we used them for scrap paper. Never thought at the time that we should be saving them as mementos The Pre-Clampdown Era.

[slackmaster]

4. My stepfather worked on launch control systems for the Mercury program

His best story is of a photo op when a bonobo was taken out of the capsule following his successful sub-orbital flight. Photographers asked the NASA technicians to put the critter back in the capsule so they could snap a few pictures of him inside it.

Four big strong men were unable to put the animal back in the capsule.