[time-nuts] Spacecraft Timekeeping
Chris Albertson
albertson.chris at gmail.com
Thu Mar 10 02:22:33 UTC 2011
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Sanjeev Gupta <ghane0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can you claim a rocket launch as an Export Credit? "Yes, Officer, we
> will report to the Customs Department if this equipment re-enters US
> Territory. We will keep track of it, thank you. And believe me, I
> will know _precisely_ when that happens."
There is precedent for this in the US. I know a case where we paid
import duty on an expensive part and then applied for refund and were
granted the refund of duty after launch because the part was
re-exported. I forget the exact technicalities but the US customs
people treated the item as being imported only for re-shipment outside
the US.
Here is another also from US Customs (My all time favorite bit of bureaucracy)
http://i.space.com/images/i/4460/i02/Apollo-11-Immigration-02.jpg
Another well known case was the optical window used on a Pioneer Venus
spacecraft. It was cut from a rather large diamond imported from
Europe. As above import duty was refunded. This made the news
because of the huge cost of the 3/4 inch diameter diamond they sliced
the window from.
--
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Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California
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