Study finds drunk astronauts allowed to fly

Source: ABC News

A panel has found that astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions despite warnings they were so drunk they posed a flight risk, Aviation Week reported Thursday on its Web site.

The publication said the panel set up by NASA to study astronaut health issues reported "heavy use of alcohol" within 12 hours of launch.

It said flight surgeons and other astronauts warned that the drunken astronauts posed a flight risk when they flew on the two known occasions.

The panel, established after the arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak in February on assault charges, also apparently does not deal directly with Nowak or mention any other astronaut by name, Aviation Week said.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3417807

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I always thought the astronauts were in isolation right before a flight. Are there beers and other alcohol available?

the others were going to do...run into a meteor? The damn ship is all automatic and controlled by Houston for goodness sake! So they partied the night before they launched. So what!

One concern I would guess would be an emergency launch pad evacuation. Of course they've never had one yet.

But, as long as you kept the problem self-contained? :D

I don't know.

But, this talk of drunken astronauts is giving me a "Terms of Endearment" flashback.

I guess it's a metabolism thing huh?

:eyes:

shuttle.

Astronauts routinely rip all around the country in whatever fighter they are current in... F-18, F16 what have you.

and they have to exit the craft in a hurry do you really want to be behind the person that is half drunk and with a major hangover from the night before ?

:shrug:

"...one gimundous, er, gigundo, *burp* aw, the hell wiff dis."

:evilgrin:

I have thought since the space shuttle Challenger blew up that the Bush Administration thinks space exploration is a waste of their time and not enough private interests can be served. I think they would like to see most of NASA scraped. If they could make NASA private and a bunch of their buddies could be getting super-rich, this story might have been scratched. NASA is not a priority. It's not pouring dollars into Halliburton or Big Oil. If NASA folded, Dick would do a dance. Less money going out to space more money for airplanes and bombs. * prolly pulled the tiles off Challenger himself.

I think *shCo really doesn't care about doing anything substantial, actually *accomplishing* anything with our space program. For them it is a small sideline that they'll allow to continue since it gives aerospace companies a blank public check. Nevermind that we could do more 35 years ago with practically stone-age technology than we are doing now. Never mind that it all turns so slowly that the damn shuttle's computers are probably, I don't know, running 16 MHz 386 processors (your PC, circa 1989). As long as Lockheed and all the rest can charge NASA a million dollars a pop for 'em, the Repukes don't care.

Meanwhile, space exploration gets a (deserved) reputation as a money pit w/little to show for it, and humankind's development will have been forever stunted by private profit prevailing over public good. Same old, same old.

Rather than paying for the military-industrial complex, I'd much rather pay for the space program. At the very least, we might get some decent science research out of it.

for hours and hours waiting for the all clear and lift off. IMO they could be drunk upon suiting up but stone sober by the end of the count down, if indeed it isn't cancelled due to a cloud in the sky being in the wrong place.

Before I get on an airplane, I can only imagine going to space.

if I had to get up in one of those flying tin cans I'd want to be hammered, too.
It's not like you really have to steer or anything. Just hang on and hope for the best. By time the booze wears off, you're in orbit. Yippee!

By then you're sober and can get down to business.

Mz Pip
:dem:

So what, during takeoff, not a problem.

THEN HUH?

The article continues with Lisa Nowack. HUH? It even misstates about the diaper she wore, which later it turns out she didn't.

The article seems written by a RW moron.

Also in news we have a NASA contractor cutting wires on a computer?

Something weird going on.

Maybe CONs will hit space station for terrorism. WIN-WIN for them.

ba-dum-dum

:rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Not only that- but this was such a poorly written piece that it laughable that it was even allowed on the website.

What are they doing, hiring middle schoolers to write their copy now?

probably kept the Gonzales story down a little, 'eh?