For most of its existence, the U. S. National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) could be termed the fishbowl agency. Unlike the Department of Defense or
nuclear-related branches of the Department of Energy, virtually everything NASA
did, built, or planned has been publicly available to anybody who asked. One reason you see so many NASA-created
photos of space and the Earth is that the agency lets anyone use its photos for
free as long as credit is given, and they have put their huge photo library
online. Less well known, but
perhaps more important, is the vast accumulation of technical
information—papers, reports, and scientific data—that NASA has also given the
public free access to. Until, that
is, last week.
In a move that annoyed the research community, NASA
director Major General Charles Bolden took down the entire NASA Technical
Reports Server (NTRS), citing concerns that some material subject to U. S.
export control laws may be on it.
This occurred a few days after a Chinese national named Bo Jiang was
arrested by the FBI after lying about the fact that he had a laptop, hard drive,
and SIM card on his person before trying to board a one-way trip to China. Mr. Bo had been a contractor working at
the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. The FBI learned that he might be taking sensitive NASA
information out of the country through some whistleblowers at the agency who
got in touch with the office of Virginia’s Rep. Frank R. Wolf, who notified the
FBI.
Now there may not have been anything illegal on Bo Jiang’s
laptop, but we will have to wait to find out. We will also have to wait to be able to use the NTRS service
until such time as Director Bolden thinks it is safe. If he is taking the U. S. export laws seriously, that may be
a while.
Based on my own limited experience, my impression of the
U. S. export laws is similar to my impression of the Transportation Security Administration, the folks who make you take off your shoes before
you board an aircraft. Both cause
varying degrees of inconvenience to large numbers of people, while having an
uncertain effect on the actual security of the country. For example, did you know that Geiger
counters, the little tubes that have been around since the 1920s, which detect
atomic particles and gamma rays, are subject to U. S. export control laws? If you go online and try to buy one
from a U. S. hobby shop, you are notified that they’re subject to export
control laws and you better not try to buy one if you’re not from here. I suppose one would need a few Geiger
counters to build a nuclear weapon in one’s basement, but the list doesn’t stop
there—a little thing like some plutonium would be necessary too, and you can’t
buy that online (not that I’ve looked—I don’t want the FBI showing up on my doorstep). These kinds of restrictions make it harder for U. S.
companies to profit from export business, and by the same token, they give an
advantage to foreign manufacturers who rush in to fill the vacuum left by our
export restrictions. This is
perverse, to say the least.
Perhaps Director Bolden is taking a more entrepreneurial
view of NASA’s intellectual property than the attitude that prevailed in the
past, which was basically one of wanting private
entities to use NASA’s smarts, because NASA could use such good news at its
next appropriation hearing before Congress as yet another reason to keep
funding the agency. There was a
time when everything from jet engines to Tang (the now-forgotten
orange-flavored breakfast drink) was claimed by NASA as at least partly due to
their innovative thinking.
But now that the center of gravity of space travel is
moving in a private direction, it may be time for NASA to act more like a
private organization. The
intellectual property that private firms develop is closely guarded, and
rightly so, because the competitive advantage it can bring can make the
difference between success and failure.
China is clearly one of our international competitors, at least in
fields that we haven’t nearly abandoned (such as consumer-product
manufacturing). So it probably
makes sense to be aware of what is going on with regard to sensitive
information at NASA going to foreign nationals, both through legitimate
channels like the NTRS and illegitimate ones like laptops with possibly stolen
data on them.
This change of attitude will be a strain, however. I’m sure that parts of NASA have always
had security restrictions, and those parts won’t have a problem with maintaining
them. But other large portions of
the agency—those devoted to scientific rather than engineering research, for
example—have always shared information as a fundamental part of their mission. The problem is that it’s not always
easy to tell the two types of research apart, even for historians of science
who take months or years to think about the question. A discovery in fundamental science today may turn into the
hot product of tomorrow, but the only way to find out which is which is to wait
and see.
In the meantime, it would be nice if whoever is in charge
of deciding what goes on the U. S. export control list would be a little more
restrained in their anonymous diktats.
One discouraging trend that is evident in many areas of life is the
encrusting creep of regulations issued by faceless bureaucrats, regulations
that cause people who are just trying to live their lives and get some work
done to drop what they’re doing and perform a dance to satisfy a government
bureaucracy. Unfortunately, it is
in the nature of bureaucracies to enlarge their turf in this way, so I am not
optimistic that the situation will improve any time soon.
Let’s also hope that whatever offending material is found
on NASA’s technical database can be purged so they can turn the service back
on, and let the taxpayers have access once again to the information they have
paid for. The attitude that NASA
really belongs to the people is reinforced by their historic freedom with which
they have shared information, and it is becoming rarer among government
agencies. But it is a good quality
that I hope will continue into the future, whatever that brings for NASA and
the world.
Sources: The article “Database is shut down
by NASA for a review” by Mark Mazzetti appeared in the online edition of the New York Times on Mar. 22, 2013 at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/us/nasa-shuts-down-database-during-security-inquiry.html. I also referred to the Wikipedia
article “Charles Bolden.” Whenever
it comes back online, you can find the NASA Technical Report Server at
ntrs.nasa.gov. I thank Jon Alan Schmidt for pointing out an erroneous reference to the Transportation Security Administration in an earlier version of this blog.