[meteorite-list] Meteorite Deliveries - on Earth

From: LabNEMS <staff_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:25 2004
Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20020830102137.0240f020_at_popmail.xensei.com>

List:

My thanks for the kind words from so many on this and the thoughtful
responses.

Shipping and receiving specimens is problematic. It's like
the Quarterback in football - he has control over the ball
only up to the point when he puts it in the air.

Overall the US Postal System has been, in my opinion, excellent.
This also extends to almost all of the worlds postal systems. Amazingly,
something we ship seems to arrive (in time) almost anywhere in the world.
Yes things get lost - but only sometimes. The ratio of what arrives to
what is lost is probably somewhere down in the "noise level".

But, as some of you have noticed, things do seem to have changed since
Sept. of last year. Our off-shore mailings do not seem to be affected but
deliveries within the US have. We ( N.E.M.S.) have the unfortunate problem
that all of our mailings go through Boston (Logan Airport). Those familiar
with
the events of Sept. 11 will remember that this was the point of origin for
the ill-fated
United airliners. Security on all packages is extreme here.

I don't know what the Postal people scan for but we have had packages
returned,
stamped - "Unsuitable for Air Shipment", or "Hazardous Material, Surface
Ship Only"
And this was only for meteorites ( one complete 2+ kilo Campo, and some slices
of an H6)

We also had a visit (recently) from Federal Agents (US Postal Inspectors)
on a package being
shipped to a university. In it were prepared samples of Trinitite and
Uranite (UO2).
The samples measured out at less than 2x Background (some granite samples from
New Hampshire can be measured at 5x Background and are, or at least have
been, routinely
shipped through the mails). The Inspectors were doing baseline work on how
and what we
shipped. My point here is that someone, somewhere is scanning all packages
at a new level to
detect anomalies. With radioactives this is understandable but meteorites
are so obscure
to Inspectors that they probably get pulled from the stream, piled up, and
examined - all slowing
the delivery process down. Of course our NEMS label's with a graphic of the
Earth and an electron
revolving around the nucleus of an atom is probably not helpful in the
current shipping
climate........

DHL, FedEx, UPS, all work but are far too costly for US shipments of only
one $20.00 micro
as was the case in Randy's E's shipment. So far we've found that
Registered US Mail is
almost bulletproof. The downside is that it's slow and expensive.

As more technology is put in place by the Postal System, I'm hopeful that
the delays
and missing packages problem will improve. But for now we'll probably all
have to
put more money into our shipping procedures to ensure more timely
deliveries or at least
give the customer more options for shipping.

Russ / NEMS
Received on Fri 30 Aug 2002 10:26:14 AM PDT