This is astonishing.
According to an article in Aviation Week, on at least two occasions astronauts who were intoxicated — drunk — were allowed to fly on the Space Shuttle [As pointed out in the comments below, the AW article never specifically says they flew on the Shuttle, just that they flew. Many astronauts train in planes, for example, so I jumped to a conclusion myself! I feel it's somewhat mitigated by knowing that lots of other folks did too. However the article does go on to say that some astronauts were intoxicated within 12 hours of launch, which is against the rules.]
A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.
The panel, also reported “heavy use of alcohol” by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule applied to NASA flight crew members.
I am at a loss for words. I mean, seriously. I know a few astronauts, and I would swear up and down that the last thing they would ever do is drink before a flight. It’s hard to believe anything like this could happen, but the panel — composed of "military and civilian government physicians, psychologists, lawyers, safety experts and astronauts under the chairmanship of U.S. Air Force Col. Richard Bachmann, dean of the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine" — found otherwise.
All I have to go on here is this article in Aviation Week. To be fair, AW generally gets good inside info, though they have been known to stumble here and again. Given the nature of this story, and only having one source, I wasn’t sure whether to publicize it or not. So I want to be clear that it is way too early to speculate here about fault, veracity, or anything else. But this is really, really important news, and needs to be aired out. It may be a few weeks before we hear more, however.
And please folks: try to keep the conclusion-jumping to a minimum in the comments.
Update: FWIW, USA Today is also reporting on this, but they only have the AW article as a source as well. They do say that the report from the panel will be released Friday at noon. Interestingly, NASA is holding a press conference at noon (Eastern) Friday about astronaut health issues.
Update 2: The Huffington Post has some more info.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
If I was about to be strapped to a few tons of rocket fuel and shot into space I think I might need a drink or two.
Seriously though, I’m just as surprised as Phil.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
None of the astronauts I know would drink before a flight….
July 26th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
But I know several space cadets who would.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I’m more surprised that Brian May from Queen is completing his doctorate in astrophysics.
But I guess both stories show that one should never make assumptions!
or, don’t judge a book by it’s cover…
or, wait to get all the facts…
or, some other pithy cliche I can’t come up with right now!
July 26th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Sure, blame the astronauts.
They weren’t drunk, those were the mind control drugs NASA uses to make sure they don’t tell anyone about the aliens.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
NASA News just keeps getting better and better. This is the Breaking News banner on CNN right this minute:
Breaking News NASA says it has found wires which may have been deliberately cut on computers bound for the international space station.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
The FAA rule for regular pilots is “8 hours from bottle to throttle.” Does NASA have different rules?
July 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I know a few of the astronauts not many but I have a real hard time believing this one.
Who did the AF get to investigate Hard copy?
July 26th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Maria – apparently it’s 12 hours for astronauts
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/07/26/astronaut.drinking.ap/index.html
July 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Well, its a good thing, the ride could be smoother. Or bumpier.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
“…two occasions astronauts who were intoxicated — drunk — were allowed to fly on the Space Shuttle.” The Aviation Week article doesn’t say anything about flying on the Shuttle while drunk, just flying in general. I think it’s much more likely the cases, if any, would be on other aircraft, at least in part because there’d be so many more people watching in the days before a Shuttle launch.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Astronauts being heavy drinkers is nothing new. Tom Wolfe, writing about the Mercury Astronauts in “The Right Stuff”:
“The people of America cheered their brains out for thirty minutes or so, and then you went back into your noble isolation for more work … or for a few proficiency runs at nailing down the holy coordinates of the fighter jock’s life, which were, of course, Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving and the rest of it. These things you could plot on the great graph of the Project Mercury in the most spectacular way, with the exception of the first: Flying.
“…
“They enjoyed the rude animal health of youth. They put their bodies through dreadful abuses, often in the form of drinking bouts followed by lack of sleep and mortal hangovers, and they still performed like champions. (‘I don’t advise it, you understand, but it CAN be done’–provided you have the right stuff, you miserable pudknocker.)”
Pages 109-110, if you’re interested.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
As much as I love beer, I can’t imagine being wasted on a shot into orbit. That has to be a supremely rare and magnificent event in anyone’s life (indeed, some pay millions for it). I’d want to appreciate it in all it’s richness and glory.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
As much as I love beer, I can’t imagine being wasted on a shot into orbit. That has to be a supremely rare and magnificent event in anyone’s life (indeed, some pay millions for it). I’d want to appreciate it in all it’s richness and glory.
July 26th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
[...] Drunk astronauts? What? According to an article in Aviation Week, on at least two occasions astronauts who were intoxicated — drunk — were allowed to fly [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Man! I thought I was being irresponsible when I was drunk on the air between 11pm and 5 am at an FM country music station! I gotta start going easier on myself. . . .
July 27th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Phew,..at the end they are humans. As said above we have to wait and see what really has happened.
I hope they will not burn them on the stack or hang them in public. It’s like everyone knows alcohol is around and after something like this happens shouts ” Oh my god, I did not know someone really drinks this stuff”.
I don’t think they really were “drunk” in the way I would understand the meaning of the word.
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 6:17 am
I would tend to wonder who they’re counting as ‘flying’ in this report. I mean, naturally you don’t want anyone on the crew drinking, but until you hit orbit, you’re effectively got 2 pilots and 5 passengers…
I seriously doubt anyone has been drunk while actually FLYING the shuttle. (Not that this is intended to excuse anyone! If nothing else, I wouldn’t want alcohol on my stomach while fighting space sickness… :p)
July 27th, 2007 at 7:57 am
[...] found via Bad Astronomy posts here, here, and [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 8:28 am
what’s up with NASA these days?! embezzling, sabotage and drunk astronauts?! not a good PR week …
Evan
July 27th, 2007 at 9:25 am
“As much as I love beer, I can’t imagine being wasted on a shot into orbit. That has to be a supremely rare and magnificent event in anyone’s life (indeed, some pay millions for it). I’d want to appreciate it in all it’s richness and glory.”
That’s why I’d pass a j around the cabin at about T-4:20.
Ever fly to the ISS? Ever fly to the ISS,……on weeeeed???
July 27th, 2007 at 11:58 am
The story is up on the BBC website, with a link to the actual report from the NASA Astronaut Health Care System Review Committee. The relevant paragraph is 2b:
“Finding: Interviews with both flight surgeons and astronauts identified some episodes of heavy use of alcohol by astronauts in the immediate preflight period, which has led to flight safety concerns. Alcohol is freely used in crew quarters. Two specific instances were described where astronauts had been so intoxicated prior to flight that flight surgeons and/or fellow astronauts raised concerns to local on-scene leadership regarding flight safety. However, the individuals were still permitted to fly. The medical certification of astronauts for flight duty is not structured to detect such episodes, nor is any medical surveillance program by itself likely to detect them or change the pattern of alcohol use.”
2c is possibly, however, the most worrying – albeit less headline-worthy:
“Finding: Several senior flight surgeons expressed their belief that their medical opinions regarding astronaut fitness for duty, flight safety and mission accomplishment were not valued by leadership other than to validate that all (medical) systems were “go†for on-time mission completion. Instances were described where major crew medical or behavioral problems were identified to astronaut leadership and the medical advice was disregarded. This disregard was described as “demoralizing†to the point where they said they are less likely to report concerns of performance decrement. Crew members raised concerns regarding substandard astronaut task performance which were similarly disregarded.
“i. Recommendation: NASA senior leadership must ensure and support policies and procedures that allow flight surgeons, trainers, astronaut peers and others to raise concerns to leadership, who in turn respond explicitly and transparently.
In other words, NASA managers have been ignoring advice from the medics to the extent that the medics are wondering if it’s worth telling them! That’s a lot more worrying in my view than a couple of instances where an astronaut got drunk before a flight – it shows a definite pattern of problems rather than what might have been isolated incidents.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Spaceflight now says “Two sources said one of the incidents in question may have involved a Soyuz launch and another a T-38 jet trainer flight.”
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts118/070726frr/
I read ‘…”heavy use of alcohol” by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule…’ as meaning heavy use shortly before launch but more than 12 hours before, i.e., staying within compliance with the rule, not as drinking within the 12 hours indicated by the rule. Such are the subtleties of language.
GaterNate: are you talking about getting high? Getting really, really high?
July 27th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Woohoo! And to think I stayed away from a career as an astronaut because all these years I thought I’d have to stay sober the whole time.
This whole thing reminds me of one of Jeff Foxworthy’s monologues:
“Houston, we’ve got problems. Ed’s done busted out the capsule winda tryin’ to hit a satellite with a beer bottle. And we need to know how to unstop the toilets–the boys ate all the freeze-dried chili and they’re tore up some’in bad!”
July 27th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
DÃas complicados para la NASA…
Hoy deberÃa de haber sido un dÃa relajado, incluso feliz, para los responsables de la NASA, ya que según se puede leer en NASA Gives ‘Go’ for Shuttle Endeavour Launch on Aug. 7 el transbordador espacial Endeavour recibÃa ayer el……
July 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Aww… they just want to be like the crazy Hollywood starlet who keep getting arrested for DUIs. Paris blogged about it.
July 29th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Check out Jim Oberg’s interview about this on British TV Channel 4 at http://wow-really.blogspot.com/2007/07/get-your-story-straight.html
July 30th, 2007 at 4:01 am
I really don’t know what NASA requires, but I think it’s that they don’t drink some time before the flight. CNN reported that alcohol was found in crew quarters. And… this is wrong how? Last I heard, NASA requires the crew not to drink some time before the flight – 24-48 hrs?
Plus, NASA is a very inefficient agency as most gov’t agencies are. The fact that it sent people to the Moon doesn’t make it better. It even takes people lives’ over finishing production of a certain “marvel” which is going to be three decades old at the time of completion.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Just a try…..
July 30th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Thats cool!!
My post went through the first time since friday noon!!!
@ Ed Davies: Thanks for clarification with the 12 hour rule. I thought it was ment the way you explained it, but was not sure because I am no native English speaker.
It is very sad that also in Germany the news was spreed the way “drunken Astronauts flying space shuttle”. This will be what people will remeber
Sigh….Wonderful World of Modern Media.
Andre