[X] My Assistant

[nprev]

I really kind of hate to post this, but it's inevitable (sigh). Breaking news that some astronauts have reported for Shuttle flights with an apparently unacceptable level of residual intoxication from the previous day or night's festivities...on two occasions, flight docs & fellow crewmembers expressed concern.

Well, not surprising; anyone who's ever been on a fighter base or read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff shouldn't blink an eye. Still, how distressing (and damaging) after the events of a few months ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/07/26/a...g.ap/index.html

EDIT: Even worse, apparently some idiot was intentionally cutting wires inside a Shuttle flight control computer!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...6808070,00.html

What the HELL is going on?!?!!!!

[Jyril]

Bad Astronomer: NASA trifecta now complete. A NASA employee stole more than $150,000.

[nprev]

Bad Astronomer: NASA trifecta now complete. A NASA employee stole more than $150,000.

Wonderful.

Not happy about the lame corrective action for the drinking business, either..."12 hours bottle-to-throttle" rigidly enforced...please. The interval should be one week if for no other reason than to ensure that any residual B12 deficit and consequent neurological effects are resolved prior to being even potentially involved in any way with the operation of an air or space vehicle.

It's high time to purge the fighter jock culture out of the Astronaut Office. If it's a bloody sin globally to smoke a cigarette, then it damn well ought to be a cardinal sin to imbibe a psychoactive/depressant drug prior to participating in spaceflight! It's one thing to stagger onboard a capsule & suck down O2 until you can read a checklist well enough to trigger the escape tower if needed & all that's at risk is your own butt (just like a fighter), quite another to do likewise on a cross-country T-38 flight with another person onboard or a Soyuz launch...and that's just what's been disclosed so far.