Space Shuttle Sabotaged By Contractor

The US space agency, NASA, says it has discovered what appears to be an act of sabotage by a contractor working on the Endeavour space shuttle before its flight in two weeks' time.

NASA said the man had cut wires on non-essential computer equipment before it was loaded onto the shuttle to be taken to the International Space Station.

NASA spokesman Bill Gerstenmaier said the incident will not stop the flight.

KENNEDY
SPACE CENTER (AP) 

A bizarre astronaut love triangle. Reports of
drunken astronauts launching. And now, NASA says it caught a worker who
allegedly sabotaged equipment headed to the international space station.

The agency alleges a space program worker snipped wires inside a
computer that is supposed to be delivered for use in the orbiting
outpost in less than two weeks.

The unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, also
allegedly damaged a similar computer that will stay here on earth.
Officials have not said where the sabotage happened.

The unidentified
employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the
computer that is supposed to be delivered to the international space
station by Endeavour, officials said.

The computer is supposed to measure the strain on a space station
beam and relay the information to flight controllers on Earth. The
damage would have posed no danger to either shuttle or station
astronauts, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief.

The worker also damaged a similar computer that was not meant to fly in space, Gerstenmaier said. Gerstenmaier
did not identify the subcontractor or where the damage took place. The
subcontractor notified NASA 1 1/2 weeks ago about the matter, as soon
as it discovered the damage to the non-flying computer.

NASA immediately checked the computer at the Kennedy Space Center
and discovered the additional damage. Officials would have caught the
problem through testing before flight, even if the subcontractor had
not alerted NASA beforehand, Gerstenmaier said.

"The damage is very obvious. It's easy to detect. It's not a mystery to us," he said. NASA hopes to fix the computer and launch it Aug. 7 as planned aboard Endeavour.

Gerstenmaier
declined to provide any information on the employee or company, but
stressed that the tampering had nothing to do with an ongoing strike at
the space center by a machinists union. He said the damage occurred
outside Florida.

"There's an active investigation going on and I'd rather let that get handled that way," he said.