Saturn V = ITAR controlled?

[Generic Username]

While I was out today, a voicemail came in from a General Dynamics Export Control Compliance guy at NASA/KSC. Wanted to have a chat with me about my web page here:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocspace.htm

Didn't leave details, and by the time I heard the message, he had long since left for the weekend. So I get to wait until Monday, I suppose.

So I did the obvious thing... looked at that page to see what was on there that might be ITAR-problematic. I don't see nuthin' but mostly Saturn stuff, with a bit of Shuttle and Dyna Soar. I figured maybe he got the wrong page, and instead meant this page:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocair.htm

That, at least, has some Convair nuclear powered aircraft stuff. Figured that must be it, the guy being from General Dynamics and all.

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."


WTF??? Saturn V is under ITAR control? Has anyone told David Weeks?

[Mark Max Q]

Maybe due to Ares using some Saturn technology (engines)? I'm only guessing!

[Generic Username]

Mark Max Q - 27/7/2007  6:34 PM

Maybe due to Ares using some Saturn technology (engines)? I'm only guessing!

You got me. But while the drawing I have are certainly historically interesting and beautiful to behold (and only a dirty commie wouldn't buy 'em!!! Yes, I'm looking at *you,* all of you), the idea that a foreign power would be able to construct a meaningful engine based on them, or based on artwork purchased at the KSC visitors center, is just plain freakin' *ludicrous.*

If you had the *complete* set of Saturn V construction plans, you still couldn't build the damned thing.

[charlieb]

You all got a nutcase or two on the loose down there eh?  Must be the heat..  I guess this means that a few thousand web pages will have to come down, thousands of books, posters and pictures will have to be shredded and burned, and my plastic 1/96 Revel Saturn V model will have to get turned in to the nearest FBI office, along with the 1/12 Mercury, and etc.   :bleh:

[Generic Username]

I guess this means that a few thousand web pages will have to come down...

Naw. The web hosters will just have to promise to not let furriners get into the interweb tubes that lead to such drawings.

[Tony T. Harris]

Someone is playing a prank on you.

[Generic Username]

Tony T. Harris - 27/7/2007  7:27 PM

Someone is playing a prank on you.

Well, after a visit about two weeks ago from an FBI agent and a USAF Office of Special Investigations officer regarding a FOIA request I made in *2003,* I'm not exactly surprised to see more such interest. And after hearing from a KSC contact that NASA's ITAR people have gotten twitchy about manifestly sillier things...



NOTE: FOIA request was for a ca. 1962 report on orbital weapons systems.

[simonbp]

Generic Username - 27/7/2007  6:40 PM

NOTE: FOIA request was for a ca. 1962 report on orbital weapons systems.

Yeah, given the current world climate, that might have raised some bureaucrat's eyebrows...

I can recall that shortly after ITAR was passed, a restored Grumman Wildcat (US Navy fighter, circa 1938) was not permitted to be shipped to Europe because it was "exporting a controlled technology". Apparently noone in Europe knows knows how to build a piston aircraft....

Simon

[dwmzmm]

Dang, I've got one Saturn - V model built and am working on another....

[Gene DiGennaro]

Hmm, I see you're building a flying SaturnV in addition to the one you've already built. Looks like you'll have some "splainin" to do as to why you've collected Saturn V bits. As I've got two Estes in the pipeline and two Revell completed, I'm sure I'll be visited by the men in blue suits and plain looking cars.

[Generic Username]

Gene DiGennaro - 27/7/2007  8:49 PM

Hmm, I see you're building a flying SaturnV in addition to the one you've already built. Looks like you'll have some "splainin" to do as to why you've collected Saturn V bits.

Indeed. Clearly, this could be a surface-to-air missile. Release the hounds!

[collectSPACE]

No wonder the Smithsonian has insisted that Houston and Huntsville move their Saturn Vs inside buildings... we can't have any spy satellites photographing them from orbit!  

[edkyle99]

Maybe he wants to buy something from you!

If not, then I don't see how he has any jurisdiction.  You don't work at KSC, right?  The only valid question he might have would concern whether someone at KSC gave you something that they shouldn't have.  Another possibility might be copyright issues, I suppose.

I wouldn't answer any questions until I could verify with absolute certainty who he is, what his job is, who his supervisor is, what their badge and social security numbers are, why he needs to know, etc..  

Heck, why even return his call?  An attorney would advise you not to talk to someone who might be   investigating you.  Guys like this might lie and tell you that they are not investigating you, etc..  If he really needs something from you, make him work it with legal papers.

- Ed Kyle

[MKremer]

It's a shame - seeing the U.S. Bill Of Rights being taken apart, and piece by piece going down the drain.

[Generic Username]

edkyle99 - 27/7/2007  9:11 PM

Maybe he wants to buy something from you!

I wish...  :frown:

You don't work at KSC, right?

Nope.

 Another possibility might be copyright issues, I suppose.

Wouldn't think so. Work done by a gubmint contractor on a gubmint contract, or by a gubmint design office, is, unless classified or truly ITAR, public domain. Especially when you request it via FOIA and *send* it to you or publish it in open sources (which was the case with all these).

I wouldn't answer any questions until I could verify with absolute certainty who he is, what his job is, who his supervisor is, what their badge and social security numbers are, why he needs to know, etc..  

And credit card and bank account numbers (with routing information). I have this Nigerian prince friend who's an expert on such things...  :bleh: