NASA Payroll "Lost in Space"

The Daily Probe - December 20, 1999

The context for this and other Daily Probe articles is provided here.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (DPI) - The NASA accounting department called
a press conference today to announce the mysterious disappearance
of part of the regular bi-weekly payroll deposit. Accounting IT
manager Dorchus Merryweather said, "We regret to inform the Mars
team here at NASA as well as at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that
their paychecks were sent out as planned, but they never arrived.
We have tried to contact the errant money, but so far we have had
no response. We speculate that rough terrain, a poisonous atmosphere,
or angry Martians may have damaged the money, rendering it useless."
Mr. Merryweather emphasized that the NASA business computing
department, which oversees payroll disbursements, usually has a
100% success rate in the delivery of salaries. He said, "This
unfortunate incident should not cause us to abandon salary payments
in the future. Mistakes do happen, and our goal as computer
scientists is to learn from our mistakes as well as from our
successes." A reporter asked if the lost money could be replaced
with other money. Mr. Merryweather replied, "Sadly, no. NASA has
an official policy of running leaner and cheaper missions. In many
cases, that means that we eliminate redundancy. There is no backup
money to kick in if the original money fails to perform as planned.
We just have to chalk it up to experience and move on. We can try
again with the next payroll in two weeks."

- Reported by Chris Jones

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