I've operated environmental testing chambers for automotive customers. It's comparatively quick and easy to do the +85C high-temperature testing, but it takes a long time and/or an expensive, oversized refrigeration unit for a chamber and the parts in it to reach the target -40C/F low temperature. -70C/-100F would probably take a very, very long time.

Even in the brutally suspicious automotive industry, it's common to have an operator manually copy the chamber temperature or thermocouple reading to the test report. Especially if you believed that the test requirement was excessive, there would certainly be a temptation to lie and say that the temperature had reached the target.

I wonder how the lie got discovered. Did her successor notice that they were less productive than she had been, because the chamber was slower than what she claimed it could do? Was the chamber incapable of reaching the target temperatures? Did the measured test results come out different?

Other coverage says the tests were run, but fails were reported as passes.

https://www.wavy.com/news/military/navy/metallurgist-faked-s...