[jedberg]

> 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 where does the line belong?

[chazzyluc]

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 with the goal of the personal item allocation.

Additionally, if it was left unchecked then future astronauts would have had to choose between bringing a picture of their loved ones or passing up on a financial bonus which would have led to a bad situation.

I can see why NASA cracked down on it pretty aggressively.

[warent]

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

[plibither8]

> 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?

[Patient0]

Suspect he was referring to the frequency of the parent poster's comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=chazzyluc

[plibither8]

Ah yes, that makes sense now. Thank you.

[reitzensteinm]

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 pocket $21k.

[jedberg]

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.

[reitzensteinm]

I believe the profit motive made it wrong, yes. It creates a fundamental conflict of interest in the allocation of taxpayer resources.

This might not have been a severe case, but NASA was absolutely right to come down on it hard.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Or, it demonstrates a lack of foresight by NASA to take advantage of an opportunity to sell a bunch of stamps over the following decades at wildly inflated prices.

There must be at least a handful of items that don't weight a lot per 1000 units that could have gone to the moon and back. I'm thinking pretty much any paper document or certificate, cash notes.

[dr_dshiv]

That's how Hearst funded the first round-the-world flight, on the Grad Zeppelin. Novelty stamps!

But mixed motivations can be confusing and demotivating.

[sigi45]

I don't know common sense? Honor? Respect perhaps?

[brianwawok]

Or how about the President having guests stay in personal hotel chains?

Oh wait...

[JetSpiegel]

The crack down will probably come, just delayed by a few years.

[trickstra]

you optimist

[dmerfield]

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...

[codingdave]

It doesn't feel like the same situation. A better analogy would be running personal projects from your corporate servers, as you are using your professionally acquired access to resources you do not own for personal gain. There is little grey area there - unless you own the company, it isn't appropriate.

[walrus01]

Not really - each astronaut was specifically given a weight allocation (in grams) for personal effects, to be chosen at their discretion, for non mission related minor cargo.

It's more like your work giving you written permission for a free 1RU of space and 2 amps of power and a DIA feed described for a personal test/development/project server, you installing a personally owned 1RU server in it and doing something useful with it, and then your work trying to claim the revenue from it.

[kalleboo]

It's more like your work giving you written permission for a free 1RU of space and 2 amps of power and a DIA feed described for a personal test/development/project server, and you turning around and starting a paid hosting service on it

[pests]

Except some were unlisted. Then it's like installing 2RU when they only wanted you to install 1RU.

Then you increased their fuel/energy/etc costs and increased the lives of others as there are now unvetted things in space/your rack.

[walrus01]

I doubt that they didn't weigh the personal effects pouch accurate to within 1 gram beforehand, so whatever they brought, it was within the specified weight allowance.

[pests]

In this case yes, but what if it did matter? What if something happened and they became loose or had a chemical that set off some sensor? There is probably more than just weight checks. Safety of ship, crew safety, imagery they wouldn't want on any footage or photographs, etc.

Some were declared; why weren't these? It is suspicious behavior. What else could have been brought on? What failures of process and policy allowed this to happen?

[xenadu02]

Astronauts can make money from their adventures the same way presidents do:

1. After the job is over and they retire 2. By making personal appearances or writing a book

Presidents generally don't take mementos on official state trips so they can sell them on eBay when they get back.

[mongol]

Don't they sometimes sign legislature with multiple pens for similar purpose?

[simonh]

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.

[6nf]

In this case it seems like it was just about approval. Those items were not approved to fly on that rocket and that's a pretty big breach of procedure.

[MichaelMoser123]

well, these guys tool a big personal risk - the vehicle might have blown up; so that I wouldn't judge them too much as a matter of principle.