According to this USA Today article,
The head of safety for NASA has investigated every space shuttle flight over the last 10 years and found no evidence of heavy drinking, space-agency spokesman David Mould tells USA TODAY’s Traci Watson.
That’s nice to know. Now they just need to clear up what happened before Soyuz flights.
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August 8th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
So how did this story reach such prominence? Where did it originate?
August 8th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Daily consumption of alcohol seem to be part of Russian culture.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
found no evidence of heavy drinking
Ah, good. Just the usual Old Milwaukee Lite and the standard Seagram’s wine coolers.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Christian Burnham said: “So how did this story reach such prominence? Where did it originate?”
It originated from an intentionally vague report, and reached such prominence through enormous efforts and the sharp minds of inquiring journalists, with a thorough understanding of spaceflight and the way NASA operates, and a deep sense of pride in truthful reporting, in no way ever leaving the path of truth for such a cheap thrill like sensationalism.
Haha.
It was an “Oooh NASA bashing!!” news item. Of course it reached prominence.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
>Daily consumption of alcohol seem to be part of Russian culture.
Yep, and all Americans are trigger-happy cowboys in hats.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Eh, let ‘em have a shot or two if they want to, I would certainly hope they don’t launch under the influence, but once they’re up there, what’s the big deal? Personally I’m sick and tired of the whole politically correct mentality, now, where did I set my beer?
August 8th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I’m sure, now that the facts have come out, that the reporters who screamed this story all over the news media will be equally as prominent in reporting the lack of story. After all, newsies only want to tell the whole story – don’t they?
August 8th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
You certainly wouldn’t want to have your people on the ISS all boozed up, but a couple of shots after a shift might not be a bad idea.
Ethanol drinks always function well as a sedative, but the calming feeling of doing something socially normal is worth even more to a group of people in an entirely artificial, high stress environment. If sipping a shot or two of cognac after a 15 hour day doing life science experiments keeps the astronaut happy, what’s the harm?
August 8th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Simply put, astronauts have a very dangerous job with a high chance of blowing up. If one of them gets nervous and has a drink, who’s going to make a big deal about it at the time? It’s not like they’re totally $h!t-faced drunk, right?
** Hope people outside of CA know what that means**
August 9th, 2007 at 7:57 am
From the article
“in a story headlined “NASA brings a bottle: American astronauts turned out to be alco-nauts,” Moskovsky Komsomlets pointed out that Russia suffered the indignity of having a cosmonaut lampooned as an unshaven boozehound in the 1998 Hollywood hit ‘Armageddon.’
“After this news the Americans should be ashamed to rewatch the blockbuster,’” the tabloid advised.”
Hmmm. I thought there were other reasons to be ashamed to watch that show…..
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/armpitageddon.html
August 9th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Yep, another exaggerated mountain-from-molehill media sensation that has turned out to be baloney.
If only agencies could sue like people for damage toreputation maybe the media would be a bit more careful ..
Then again, there’s wa-aay too much litigation in your culture anyway and in other ways that’s the last thing we need more of. Only lawyers win at the legal games we play now. “Justice” went out the window a long time ago as I – and most others too I’d think – see things.
Could we just get a responsible media doing ist job honouyrably and actually researching and highlighting the positve real stories, informaing thepublic on the science and making reasonable criticisms in a measured fair way when called for? I’d drink to that …. If only it’d happen.
Getting media accountability and getting them to play fair rather act as propagandists and sensation-mongers seems an incredibly hardand distant prospect – it should be a goal but in the Murdcoh blighted climate of today it seems a very distant dream …
August 9th, 2007 at 10:09 am
>Yep, and all Americans are trigger-happy cowboys in hats.
I wasn’t being shallow, there is a real problem with alcohol in Russia and part of it is social acceptance of heavy drinking.
A few weeks back I picked up my wife in Heathrow airport after one of her business trips to Russia. While I waited a planeload of people from Chicago came through, I have never seen this many grown up people with cowboy hats before, well not since that Brokeback Mountain cowboy party we attended a few months back
August 9th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
>I wasn’t being shallow, there is a real problem with alcohol in Russia and part of it is social acceptance of heavy drinking.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
And there isn’t a real problem with guns in America and the social acceptance of them?
August 9th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
“And there isn’t a real problem with guns in America and the social acceptance of them?”
Now that’s a non-sequitur. Unless there were some charges that astronauts were carrying guns on missions I don’t see the connection.
August 9th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
To HvP: Didn’t you see Armageddon?: “Man, what are you doing with a gun in space?”
August 10th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Or a gun on an oil platform, for that matter.