The costs for regular maintenanace and upkeep on the ETPs during their short run in checkpoint areas was so far outside the estimated/projected costs it was ridiculous. The program ran roughly $29.6 million total, and $6.2 million of that was spent on maintenance and repair for 94 deployed machines (for you number nerds, that boils down to approximately $65,957.45 on average). This was also a fairly long "testing" run (from 2004 to 2009) or Beta phase, with many attempts at fixing the recurring maintenance issues. Sadly, none of the fixes worked on a large scale and this tech fell out of favor due to the exorbitant costs of keeping them running. I would love to see this tech revamped and brought back in some form, as it was pretty good tech, but it is fairly evident that the ability to operate these at a speed that is comparable to other screening while correcting the existing maintenanace challenges is not an easy path. Otherwise, we would have seen some company reintroduce this in another format and get the approvals needed to integrate into the system. Interestingly enough, the TSIF was introduced for TSA as this program was coming to the end, and TSIF allows TSA to conduct controlled research for new tech as it emerges. I am quite certain that the 2 situations are completely unrelated, but it is a funny coincidence. See the write up at the TSA Blog here http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/05/explosiv...detection.html.

FWIW, I loved this tech, it was pretty much non-invasive, and fairly quick for what it was. I also do not ever see it coming back in the format it was in previously. With the new spectrum analysis equipment, density testing equipment and some of the other tech coming down the pipe right now, ETP is probably a thing of the past - even though I loved these machines!