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NASA Moon Idle

Buzz Aldrin Publishes Moon Expenses Form 100

Posted by samzenpus from the all-about-the-paperwork dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Proving once again that the government has a form for everything, Buzz Aldrin has unveiled his Apollo 11 documentation on social media over the past few days, including a travel voucher detailing his expenses on his trip to the moon. The papers listed him as having been on a "work trip" from his home in Houston, Texas that had taken him to the moon and then back again with a total expenses claim of just $33.31. The report notes : "Government meals and quarters [were] furnished for all of the above dates."
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Buzz Aldrin Publishes Moon Expenses Form More

Buzz Aldrin Publishes Moon Expenses Form

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  • In 2015 dollars (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @12:52AM (#50246303)

    http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
    Comes to $216.59 in 2015 dollars.

  • Shouldn't he still get to claim per diem?

  • Tedious "lol government" editorializing (Score:5, Funny)

    by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @02:04AM (#50246591)

    "the government has a form for everything"

    As if there wouldn't otherwise be people screaming about how Buzz Aldrin did not account for how he spent out tax money and is therefore a theif.

    As if private corporations do not require expense reports. (My favorite case of this was returning from business trips to South East Asia. I would land in Hong Kong about 10am, have some lunch, leave on a 2pm flight, land at LAX at 10 am, have some lunch, leave on a 2pm flight. My expense report would make people freak out because I listed 2 lunches for the same calendar day. It took a couple of tries before someone told me to enter one as breakfast.)

    • I'm old enough to remember on Slashdot when people were automatically knee-jerk anti government. Until January 20, 2009, it was.

    • "Madam, we ate them" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TapeCutter ( 624760 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @07:17AM (#50247391) Journal
      David Attenborough tells a wonderful story about his early days at the BBC. He had bought two pack horses on location for 30 shillings because he could not find a guide who had enough of their own horses to service the crew. When he was done with the horses he gave them away (to the guide I assume). Back in London he got a call from the BBC accounting office querying the two horses on his expense claim. The accountant was demanding to know where the horses were located because they were now "BBC property" and would appear as such in an audit. Attenborough responded with "Madam, we ate them", which as it turned out were the magic accounting words that turn an asset into a consumable.

      The moral of the story is; if you are ever on safari and need to claim some pack mules, either bring them back with you or describe them as "breakfast" on the expense claim..

      • Re:"Madam, we ate them" (Score:4, Funny)

        by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @11:34AM (#50249093) Homepage Journal

        "Hey, Attenborough, how hungry were you?"

        "Well, I was so hungry..."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        crackin'...! :D

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by imidan ( 559239 )

        The moral of the story is; if you are ever on safari and need to claim some pack mules, either bring them back with you or describe them as "breakfast" on the expense claim..

        See, that would just get me in trouble. My office won't pay for meals, only for per diem, so then I'd be out the cost of the mules, unless they cost less than an out-of-state breakfast allowance (somewhere around $12.00, I think)--and then I'd be out of pocket for the cost of my actual breakfast that day, unless I did in fact eat the m

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      My expense report would make people freak out because I listed 2 lunches for the same calendar day. It took a couple of tries before someone told me to enter one as breakfast

      Here in Norway that would probably be for tax reasons. Since excessive wining and dining could be considered a fringe benefit, there are regulations for how much you can charge the company per day tax free. Those limits are adjusted relative to the number of what meals you've had and if any have been provided for you (breakfast, lunch and dinner is singled out) like part of the trip like on a conference. Some give those as part of the trip, you choose how much to eat for and how much to pocket. Eating a dou

      • Here in the state of Pennsylvania our Governor has said no state employee may accept anything from anyone. Not even a pen at a conference.

        If you attend some meeting where lunch is served you either have to forgo eating or obtain a receipt for the cost of the meal and reimburse the presenter. Even if there are only cookies and water, you have to get a receipt.

        It's his effort to promote transparency in government but his edict has caused issues with people who are required to attend conferences as part of th

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bkr1_2k ( 237627 )

          It hasn't caused "issues", it's caused paperwork. There's a difference. Every government employee I know has to do this for any kind of meals provided. Any gifts over $10, I think, also have to be accounted for in paperwork. It's a hassle but not an "issue".

    • "As if private corporations do not require expense reports. "

      I have to file expense reports too, and it's my company. Buchhaltern über alles

  • Some of these items look suspicious: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @02:33AM (#50246675) Journal

    * Chewing gum
    * Accordion
    * Shoe-horn
    * Pizza cutter
    * 75 watt light bulb
    * Dried armadillo
    * Bicycle peddle
    * Original painting of a bulldozer
    * Rodent repellant
    * 7 bottle caps
    * Pillow feathers
    * Rubber mallet
    * Dog bone
    * Green paint, exterior
    * Detour sign
    * Broken canoe paddle
    * Decorative beads
    * Baby pacifier
    * Petunia seeds
    * Empty ice tray
    * Batman mask
    * 3 human teeth
    * Toothpick sculpture of a 3-legged donkey
    * Drained snow-globe

    As a hard-working tax-payer, I demand answers.
       

    • Original painting of a bulldozer

      My kingdom for some mod points.... this is comedy gold!

    • That looks like an inventory list for an Infocom text adventure game. heh

    • > Rodent repellant

      Essential! Since the moon is made of cheese you're bound to have a more than a few mice running around.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        mice don't generally like cheese. They prefer dark chocolate.

        (source: have had to deal with a neighbourhood invasion of the little fuckers. Ended up getting a cat since I was fed up of resetting forty traps six times a day and incinerating over a thousand little brown bodies a week).

  • The government didn't charge him for the view.
  • We supposedly made it to the moon in the 1960's. The last time we went was in 1972.

    Why haven't we (or anyone else) gone back in over 40 years?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by asylumx ( 881307 )
      Because it's expensive and dangerous for little gain. There's been plenty of science to be done closer to earth, which is why we built the international space station.
      • I find it very odd that nobody wants to return to the moon.

        I would think that companies such as McDonalds would want the "golden arches" on the moon; or Hilton would have a prestigious moonbase hotel; a giant "iMoon Apple" stating global or universal dominance; an NSA spystation; or Russia or China might want to put their flag up there next to the US flag...

        I know most people say that it is just too expensive but I don't buy it. We waste billions of dollars on uselessness everyday on planet earth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

          Still cheaper to put a huge golden arches ad in LEO, a hotel in LEO, an Apple iSat in LEO, NSA spy sats in LEO, and Chinese flags in LEO. Still haven't done any of that, except for the military stuff.

          There is no military advantage to doing anything on the moon. The only reason the US went there was because they had already lost the rest of the space race to the Russians. One of the ways to win cold wars is to get your opponent to vastly outspend you on their military until their economy collapses. Fortu

        • I find it very odd that nobody wants to return to the moon.

          I would think that companies such as McDonalds would want the "golden arches" on the moon; or Hilton would have a prestigious moonbase hotel; a giant "iMoon Apple" stating global or universal dominance; an NSA spystation; or Russia or China might want to put their flag up there next to the US flag...

          Well let the dream team of Apple and McDonalds pay for their own fucking space programme then.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jfengel ( 409917 )

          Russia got out of the moon-race business once it lost. "Yay, we spent billions to come in second" would not have really worked for them. They've specialized in near-earth activities, and it's turned out really well.

          China is still talking about it [space.com], and just might. They've landed a probe, have put people in orbit, and are working for real on a space station. They're not in a rush to get to the moon, since they'll need to do more than just plant a flag to make it seem like an achievement to rival America's, bu

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

          if they'd found oil or gem-quality diamonds or auric nuggets in the Apollo samples, you can sure as shit bet they'd be on Apollo MXCVI by now.

          • "...if they'd found oil or gem-quality diamonds or auric nuggets..."

            My point exactly.

            How do we know there is nothing there?

            A few guys allegedly went there decades ago and found nothing but rock and "reflective sand".

            Did the Apollo missions bring any mining equipment to the moon? Has the moon's composition been evaluated using modern technology?

            How do they know for sure that there are no precious minerals, resources, or new, unidentified minerals or substances there?

            And why is the num

    • Because that would require applying science, and we don't do that any more.

    • Re:Next moon landing? (Score:5, Funny)

      by pr0fessor ( 1940368 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @09:36AM (#50248201)

      My question is why is he showing the expense form now... did it take that long for them to process it?

  • Not sure what the rate was back in 1969, but it would have added up.

  • Navy flight records for Space Shuttle (Score:5, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @09:09AM (#50247961)
    I used to work on the system which keep track of Navy flight records. We had to modify it to handle Navy personnel flying on the Space Shuttles. The system only allowed for 99.9 hour flight legs. Since shuttle flights were longer than 100 hours, we had to modify the system to handle them differently if the aircraft was one of the space shuttles. Talk about getting in your flight hours.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

      what about flights to the ISS? Doesn't that count as two flights?

      E.g., launch and insertion, docking. That's one.
      Undocking, reentry and landing, that's two.

      Between docking and undocking, the SOV isn't actually in flight - it's attached to a larger vehicle which for all intents is actually stationary since it requires a pod equipped with an engine docked to it to even perform any sort of major attitude change. Hell, the clue is in the name, the "International Space Station". Ergo, the flight crew is pretty m

  • https://aoprals.state.gov/web9... [state.gov]

    No per diem rates for the moon.

    Well, that settles it. If the State Department doesn't have per diem for it, it must mean no travel took place.

    How can you fill out TDY forms if you don't have a per diem rate that you can cash in on, amirite, Govvies on Slashdot?

  • He Photoshop'd a few lines in his itinerary indicating a stop over at a secret movie studio at a desert base in Nevada.

  • He kind of reminds me of Woz and Jobs, where Jobs was intense and Woz was cool. In this case its Neil who was intense and Buzz who is cool.

  • 3.31 for a steak sandwich and coffee on the way in?

  • (n/t)

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