Naturalized Yes, security background check definitely. I work in dod for long time, and i don't see too many naturalized chinese in all the company i work for, especially if there are 1st gen. Also Almost all naturalized chinese has a degree in US, higher education in china is still lack behind compare to US.
In order to work for defense, 1st you have to have a degree that the company recognize, which mean you basically has to have a degree from a western university(1 yr master, 4-5yr phd), after that You apply H1B, and if you lucky you get a job and they support your green card. Then you get green card(few years), then US citizenship(few more years), by the time you get the US citizenship you already live in US for more than 10yrs+. Only then you are able to apply for sensitive, defense related job. So most experience you get IS from working under US company. I have never heard someone who came from china with work experenice got hired immediately to a DoD job. So NO, the chinese who are here working on military and sensitive stuff got their experence within US. Depend on what part of NASA, there are different level of security.
Yes, I am VERY familiar with the process you talk about. My parents went through the exact process (I piggy-backed). Yes, most of these people get their post-graduate education in the US, but don't expect them to completely throw away what they had learn in their home country. I am not particularly talking about the exact knowledge/theories we learn in school, but things like the way of thinking, culture, etc. This kind of stuff sticks with you all your life. Just try to argue with my dad about Confucius (although he's been in the States for over 30 years), you'll know what I'm talking about. And developing new technology/systems is a creative process that depends on many things in addition to actual technical knowledge/theories. A lot of times, your cultural up-bringing and way of thinking play a big part.
Additionally, I'm NOT talking about particularly Chinese immigrants. My comments were more aimed at your comments "US technology is purely domestic and has not foreign influence". So I was trying to show you that the US also needs foreign help and many its high tech systems have foreign influence since many of their designers have heavy foreign influence. Although some of my examples were Chinese, I also listed many examples about how European immigrants works in the DoD industry.
So my point is US DoD industry is also influenced by foreigners. If not by Chinese, it could be by Indians, British or German or Russian. The US is too big a melting pot to exclusively conclusively say that its technology has no foreign influence.
I don't know which part of DoD industry you work in, but where I can see DoD industry or institutes are full of first general immigrants. When I was in grad school, I used to collaborate with US Army on projects (about battlefield injuries, especially spinal core injuries since my field of study used to be inflammation). I know that many colleagues I've worked with are first generation immigrants. Most of these people work in biological weapon field (anthrax stuff...).
As a matter of fact, I know people who join the military in the States TO OBTAIN A GREEN CARD. So even the US military has foreigners (with actual foreign citizenship).
