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Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

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Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#141

Post by zackmorris »

weberc2 wrote: post #108
zackmorris wrote: post #85

As Nasa is a government agency, I wonder if lack of regulation and oversight played a hand in this. This sort of scenario is exactly why I'm concerned about the recent trend towards rampant free market economics and libertarianism. Those ideas have merit in certain situations, but also increase risk to the public as witnessed here by losses that are proportionately much higher than any efficiency savings. I'm also co…

Honest questions: 1. Is there any compelling evidence that this incident is attributable to "free market economics"? It seems equally possible that it's attributable to notoriously poor incentive structures in government agencies. In my view it seems most likely that it's neither, in this particular case. 2. Is there evidence that there is a "recent trend towards rampant free market economics and libertarianism"? Aga…

I'm not sure about your first question, but for your second question the evidence is everywhere. My news feed is filled with multiple articles per day about cutting regulations on just about everything, but mostly impacting the environment, or social justice issues:

https://www.google.com/search?q=deregulate&tbm=nws

Part of the issue is geographic. Being born and raised in Idaho, I've found myself surrounded by libertarians. Conservative-leaning people tend to move here from more liberal states on the coasts.

Now where it really gets interesting is when libertarian think tanks do the opposite of what might be expected:

https://www.hjnews.com/montpelier/voter-initiatives/article_...

In this case Idaho Freedom Foundation (a local libertarian think tank) is against public voter initiatives (which may someday lead to the legalization of marijuana in Idaho) but is for getting public approval for urban renewal projects like the Boise city library teardown/rebuild and new stadium.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#142

Post by gnode »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #124
gnode wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

>> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. > They are though. From the justice.gov article: > "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers...Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $170,00…

> I'm not seeing the incentive for someone in testing to fake results on their own.

There's a lot of missing details, so it's hard to know. From the description of what he did, it seems the interest was not so much in generating false results, but cutting corners, such as running the tests quicker than was allowable. This could have been to make up for some shortfall in lab throughput, for instance.

Also, it sounds like he was in charge of the lab, so fairly high up. That position may have come with substantial performance related incentives.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#143

Post by JumpCrisscross »

abakker wrote: post #99
gnode wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

>because it isn't a human. This is especially interesting in the context of corporate personhood[1]. You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating. A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs. IANA…

> You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating

Just "disbanding" a corporation would be pointless. The shareholders (most likely, someone in senior management) could just purchase back (or replicate) the assets and keep going.

The proper ways to "kill" companies include revoking their licenses (see Arthur Anderson), fining them into bankruptcy and possibly liquidation and sanctioning them (for foreign SOEs). None seems to apply in this case, where a prohibition on federal contracting and securing an admission of guilt, which lets other customers who were harmed seek redress through the courts, seem to cover all bases.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#144

Post by mikeash »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #87
mikeash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I was up for jury duty, I was asked to consider a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving a stolen Xbox.

That's the kind of crowd you end up running with if you do things like trying marijuana in college. edit: Real question, though. I'm often called to report for jury duty but have yet to actually sit on a jury. My understanding is the jury is explicitly charged to reach a "guilty of accusation" or "not guilty" decision. And sentencing is a whole separate phase of the trial in which the jury is not involved. I'm sure t…

In Virginia, which I believe is the only state like this, a jury which renders a guilty verdict then reconvenes to determine the sentence. Everywhere else sentencing is done by the judge.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#145

Post by mrkstu »

dctoedt wrote: post #76
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed. Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly. The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments. In a country of 330 million people, that me…

> But the self-determination of communities is a more fundamental right than the right to consume whatever substances you want. Pretty sweeping statement there. What if a majority of a "community" decides its residents shouldn't eat meat?

Like many states in India forbidding the consumption of beef? Or many entities forbidding dog/cat/horse meat? It happens all over, all the time.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#147

Post by [deleted] »

nerdponx wrote: post #132
godzillabrennus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don’t know that your actions are illegal? Who could reasonably do a job as an employee if they didn’t have that liability shield? The justice system is broken enough in the USA (unless you are rich) that I can’t imagine introducing more issues.

What if you don’t know that your actions are illegal? Who could reasonably do a job as an employee if they didn’t have that liability shield? This isn't an excuse for private citizens, so why should it be an excuse as an employee? That said, we should propagate responsibility as high as possible. If you are a rank-and-file employee and your manager is asking you to do something illegal, unless you have enough profess…

[deleted]

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #25
MichaelApproved wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not typical for "kid[s]" to be put in prison for carrying "a few grams of weed." It might happen sometimes (in a country of 330 million people, everything that can happen will happen sometimes) but it's not typical. First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed. Second, for all the made, think ab…

> First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed. Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly. The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments. In a country of 330 million people, that me…

> Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly.

No, they don't; communities don't have rights, individuals do. Communities have the legitimate power to do what you describe so long as no individual rights are violated.

> The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments.

No, it's not. It may in some cases be an aspect of a legitimate core function (the protection of public health, for instance) so long as the manner of regulation is actually consistent with that function and with individual rights.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#149

Post by cr0sh »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #87
mikeash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I was up for jury duty, I was asked to consider a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving a stolen Xbox.

That's the kind of crowd you end up running with if you do things like trying marijuana in college. edit: Real question, though. I'm often called to report for jury duty but have yet to actually sit on a jury. My understanding is the jury is explicitly charged to reach a "guilty of accusation" or "not guilty" decision. And sentencing is a whole separate phase of the trial in which the jury is not involved. I'm sure t…

> am I missing something about how you were asked as a juror to consider that sentence?

It was probably asked during the "voir dire" phase; that's where if you actually perform jury duty and have to go down to the court, your group might be called in to sit for "voir dire", where the lawyers for each side (prosecution and defendant) ask each potential jury member certain questions regarding the case.

The questions are meant to allow the lawyers to pick from the group a pool of jurors - those that make it through voir dire perform the actual jury duty of being the jury. Those who don't, go home.

And if you ever want to never serve on a jury, or never be called again for jury duty, mention that you support FIJA or the concept of a "fully informed jury".

It's like a poison pill for ever serving on a jury again, but usually, if you are anything like a software engineer or similar (which they do ask your profession in voir dire), they will generally skip you (they really, really don't want anyone with that kind of mindset of extreme logic, reasoning, rationality, process flow, etc).

But if you mention FIJA - there's a chance they'll not only let you go, plus strike you from the "call list" - but that any other potential juror in the room will get the same treatment.

FIJA is not against the law. It's your right as a citizen to understand and be "fully informed", but the courts (or our justice system) have made it so that most people aren't (for instance, most people don't know or understand anything about "jury nullification", and the system plays to this ignorance). They will say such things prior to the jury leaving to decide the case that the jury can only consider the "guilty or not guilty" according to the law, etc - which is a complete lie. A juror or jury can decide "not guilty" even if it is clear that the law was broken, if they feel the law is unjust. But they don't want you to know that you can do that as a juror or jury. So they don't "fully inform" you of that option.

If you really want to get them into a tizzy, print out 500 business cards with the FIJA info on them, and put them on cars in the parking lots around the courthouse...note that you might need a permit for this, or they might have made it "illegal" to do this to cars around a courthouse (it might be considered jury tampering or something - amazing that by informing people of their rights as a juror and citizen, that would be considered "tampering"...), so understand that, too.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#150

Post by dylan604 »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #131
gnode wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be that actually fully stressing the parts is avoided, as it may risk weakening the part. I've heard of various non destructive testing methods being used to check the integrity of metals in aerospace, such as ultrasound and radiography. This may well be enough if the part is actually made of what it's supposed to be.

> It may be that actually fully stressing the parts is avoided, as it may risk weakening the part. Couldn't they just buy an extra and destructively test that?

+1 Make that part of the deal. We only need 2 items, but you will produce 4. We will then randomly pick 2 of them for testing, and then and only then if those 2 pass will we actually use the remaining 2 as needed.

This happens all the time in construction of multistory buildings. When the floors of concrete are poured, they also produce smaller sections of concrete from the same batches. As the concrete cures, it's strength is tested. This ensures that the concrete can support the weight designated in the plans. Better to watch a test pour fail than the building collapsing when cheap concrete fails under load.

[edit] oops, just read comments later in the thread stating the same thing

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