Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or how about the President having guests stay in personal hotel chains? Oh wait...
The crack down will probably come, just delayed by a few years.
you optimist
Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#42> some said astronauts should not be allowed to reap personal profits from NASA missions. That's an interesting ethical question. At what point is it ok for someone who got paid by the government to do a job ok to make extra money because of that fact. These days most Presidents get to write books about their time in the White House and make money. Buzz Aldrin still goes to cons and signs autographs for money. So whe…
This would be more like the President renting out a room in the White House. I think the line is actually pretty clear; if you're using state resources to produce something of value to sell for private profit, you're on the wrong side of it. While 400 stamps don't weigh a lot, they'd still cost more than $1 each to launch by my back of the envelope calculations. You're effectively footing NASA with a $500 bill to poc…
Not sure if you’re hinting at this but President Clinton was actually caught renting out a room in the White House:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Bedroom_for_contribu...
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#43> some said astronauts should not be allowed to reap personal profits from NASA missions. That's an interesting ethical question. At what point is it ok for someone who got paid by the government to do a job ok to make extra money because of that fact. These days most Presidents get to write books about their time in the White House and make money. Buzz Aldrin still goes to cons and signs autographs for money. So whe…
It’s the difference between making money doing the mission itself, as in doing something during the mission you wouldn’t otherwise do in order to profit from it, as against making money from having done the mission.
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between running a side game on your own time and smuggling schlocky trinkets on a mission of national significance under a international spotlight. I suppose you can spin it as a triumph of capitalism, but most people would consider it an embarrassment.
It's only an embarrassment if you have a deep seated anti-commercial bias. Sure, your adjectives are quite invocative but let's contrast your prose with reality: > smuggling Taking something personal in the space assigned for personal use is not smuggling. > schlocky trinkets Envelopes from space are pretty neat and evidently highly valued by the people that ended up buying them. Those people now have something that…
It’s nothing to do with commercial bias. The personal effects allowance was assigned in order to aid astronaut morale. If they’re sacrificing allowance for personal items commercially that creates a perverse and distracting situation. Also personal effects are supposed to go through a approval process, which at least some of these covers bypassed. Do you really want astronauts making trade offs between genuinely personal items and effectively commercial cargo?
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it was an issue of misuse of tax payer dollars or anything like that. The point of allowing astronauts to bring personal items was to help keep their mental health stable and morale high over the course of an 8+ day journey in a very confined space under extreme stress. Having crew members thinking about how their side hustle was going to pan out when they got home would be a distraction and not in line…
You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already and I think it's been well spent. This seems to be a perfect rationale when you put it in these terms
> You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already
I've tried to make sense out of your comment but have failed. What do you exactly mean by this sentence?
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already and I think it's been well spent. This seems to be a perfect rationale when you put it in these terms
> You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already I've tried to make sense out of your comment but have failed. What do you exactly mean by this sentence?
Suspect he was referring to the frequency of the parent poster's comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=chazzyluc
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already and I think it's been well spent. This seems to be a perfect rationale when you put it in these terms
> You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already I've tried to make sense out of your comment but have failed. What do you exactly mean by this sentence?
[deleted]
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You've reached your one-post-per-year quota already I've tried to make sense out of your comment but have failed. What do you exactly mean by this sentence?
Suspect he was referring to the frequency of the parent poster's comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=chazzyluc
Ah yes, that makes sense now. Thank you.
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be more like the President renting out a room in the White House. I think the line is actually pretty clear; if you're using state resources to produce something of value to sell for private profit, you're on the wrong side of it. While 400 stamps don't weigh a lot, they'd still cost more than $1 each to launch by my back of the envelope calculations. You're effectively footing NASA with a $500 bill to poc…
But they are allowed to bring personal items on board. The error here was clerical. In fact some of the covers were listed under the personal items section. So was that wrong? They opted to take those instead of other personal items.
I don't know common sense? Honor? Respect perhaps?
Re: Apollo 15 postage stamp incident
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only an embarrassment if you have a deep seated anti-commercial bias. Sure, your adjectives are quite invocative but let's contrast your prose with reality: > smuggling Taking something personal in the space assigned for personal use is not smuggling. > schlocky trinkets Envelopes from space are pretty neat and evidently highly valued by the people that ended up buying them. Those people now have something that…
It’s nothing to do with commercial bias. The personal effects allowance was assigned in order to aid astronaut morale. If they’re sacrificing allowance for personal items commercially that creates a perverse and distracting situation. Also personal effects are supposed to go through a approval process, which at least some of these covers bypassed. Do you really want astronauts making trade offs between genuinely pers…
"The personal effects allowance was assigned in order to aid astronaut morale."
This strikes me as a weird reason to object: surely, Getting significant financial gain could help aid morale.
I'm not in favour of astronauts using their launches to establish a for-profit souvenir business. But I'm not objecting to that on the grounds of their morale.