Report: Astronauts were drunk before launches
Gives a whole new meaning to "drinking and driving", doesn't it?
Marine Corps Times (h/t Gregory):
At least twice, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a flight-safety risk, an aviation weekly reported Thursday, citing a special panel studying astronaut health.
The independent panel also found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch that was within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology, which reported the finding on its Web site.
A NASA official confirmed that the health report contains claims of alcohol use by astronauts before launch, but said the information is based on anonymous interviews and is unsubstantiated. The official didn't want to be named because NASA plans a news conference Friday to discuss the panel's findings.[..]
"That's not the ‘right stuff' as far as I'm concerned," said Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.
"Astronauts were drunk before launches“
Me, too.
I'm sure it's a tough job, but isn't most of the launch controlled by computers? how much flying on the way up do they really do?
Nah, this is old news designed to keep more pressing current matters out of the headlines.
Cheney for president!!!!!
With the safety record of the shuttle in the last 10 years, can you blame them?
I'd be drinking too!
Plus, the damn thing flies itself into orbit, they are just "Spam in a Can" as the old Test Pilots used to call the Mercury Astronauts.
Now, on the way down, they have to do some flying...
But, hell, on the way up, if I was hanging with the Russians, Pass the DAMN VODKA AND MAKE IT COLD!
And I'm gonna be high-gh-gh... as a kite by then
I dunno', but considering how F'ed up the federal government has become over Bush's reign, I'd be more than a little apprehensive climbing aboard a rocket these days. How many NASA jobs have been contracted out to a former Halliburton CEO and just who's running NASA these days? Any Regent University grads? Ya know the folks who don't believe in science. Um, wouldn't you need a little liquid courage too?
Screw u Mr Gordon. Facing what they face at liftoff, knowing it's 99% run by computer I would also have a few before liftoff.
Bottle to the throttle, baby!
Now how many toked up for the launch, too?!
baby jesus always drinks before flights
baby jesus always drinks adult beverages before flight and Keith O.
What! Nobody ever watched "The Right Stuff"? Geez. Those guys in the early space program knew how to knock back a few.
"Yee-haawwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"
them alien chicks are hot. Id drink too to talk to them
Sooooo why is this a bigger story than the rocket being sabotaged? Deflection perhaps?
Strawberry @ 14:
They tried like hell to blame the sabotage on "Al Queda in Florida" but it just wasn't going to fly....
let'm smoke a joint when they are up there.
just to raise the consciousness of all humankind!!!!!!!!
i can tell you one thing. i do not want to live on any other spaceship, besides mother earth.
a spaceship???
i can't think of a more fascist place to live. your entire being would be
monitored and any deviation would be considered schizophrenia. it's
a gw wet dream.
Who cares? No news here. Let them blow themselves up. They'd get more tv coverage and probably more support for the space program.
Or, NASA should simply not allow ANY drug consumption or you're out..even if it's day of launch. Being hung over is dangerous too, especially with tax-payer funded space rockets! Or is it privately funded?...
baby jesus @ 11:
A bit of the old Jesus juice?
"...based on anonymous interviews and is unsubstantiated."
What is this?...has C&L joined the MSM? Paleeze.
[Sitemonitor here, your "concern" is duly noted]
when i worked at nasa, you could have a beer with lunch in the cafeteria.
Funny thing is, the one that drove cross country in a diaper was stone sober.
Booze: The Right Stuff
Driving a space ship while drunk? Oh my.
Tell me you wouldn't knock back a few before climbing onto a big as bomb.
"Report: Astronauts were drunk before launches"
Just like the president! Better check the cockpit for lines of cocaine. (rockets do have cockpits don't they?)
Sorta makes you wonder about the pilots on big ol' commercial airplanes as well...
Gotta love a Republican government when it comes to making sure we're all safer.
...was Jenna on board?
In the 60's back when the future was what is used to be there was a comedian Bill Dana who created a character Jose Jimenez - an latino immigrant astronaut interviewed by some straight man. A line in his routine was about the most important moment in the take off sequence. His response was "The Blastoff." "The blastoff?" asks the interviewer. "Yes the blastoff - I always take a blast before I take off."
At least they had access to one of the best hangover cures. Pure O2.
What do they do on launch except sit on top of a controlled explosion, other than hope it remains controlled?
That's one small shot for man............
Better a drunk astronaut than a "recovered" alcoholic president! What? You think those guys actually STEER the shuttle? Like driving your car? What they do, they just sit in their recliners and hope the foam chunks don't fall into the tiles and kill them all. And for that, hell, I'D WANT A DRINK OR TWO ALSO! On the other hand, if they die, they just die. If The Drunk Coke-head in the White House gets a notion, TENS OF THOUSANDS DIE!
Pass me a cerveza.
Damn, and they arrested my 18 year-old for showing up (happy/sloppy) drunk to a high school dance and threw him in jail. No tolerance policies...
Now we know where "Buzz" Aldrin got his name. /rimshot
I'd need to have more than a few Bombay Sapphire & Tonics to climb aboard a bomb consisting of one External Tank and two Solid Rocket Boosters.
Squeeze of lime please...
Virginia Renegade @ 31:
That's because your kid wasn't Laura "Pickles" Bush. If so, he could could have ran a stop sign and killed someone and gotten off skit free. http://www.bartcop.com/pickles-killer.htm Was Laura drinking? The world may never know considering the police report was not filled out completely and she got off without so much as even a slap on the wrist. Hell, Paris Hilton served more time.
how much damage can you do, strapped down to a shuttle seat in a full space suit, while a few million lbs of thrust throws u out of this world. I wonder if the prep crew was told to add an extra restraint to 2 to some of the "specialists". "make sure their barf mask is in place too." btw, thats a pic of a Saturn V, not the Space shuttle.
Alert! Alert! Shiny Object Alert! (SOA!) It's a twofer. 1)SOA and 2) Make NASA look bad. NASA, the only gov't program which generates huge profits. I'm not saying the story is untrue, sadly. It should be looked into. I KNOW! I KNOW! Lets have LIEberman's committee investigate it! Yeah, that'l give him something to do.
Considering that nobody flies the shuttle on takeoff, what's the big deal. Everyone on board is just along for the ride; it's the computers that fly the thing. The Challenger showed if something does go wrong, there isn't time to do anything about it (as there is no escape pod).
Come on, haven't we all been pulled over after a beer or two, and caught hell for it, when we knew we were cool to drive? On the other hand, you're a hell of a lot less likely to plow someone over in a shuttle. On the third hand (I'm Ganesha. Got a problem with it?), There are a lot of tax dollars at work here. On the fourth hand, at least it's not everyone else's lives at stake, right? On the fifth hand, there is this story I seem to remember hearing about shortly after the Challenger disaster. Something about flying plutonium up into space... Enough that, were another Challenger situation to happen, the plutonium dust would be sufficient to cause cancer in every single human on earth. http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/kg8801tn.htm
I'd be drunk too, if I was stuck on top of 100,000 parts, each supplied by the lowest bidder.
I'll have a TANG and VODKA on the rocks please!
NASA posted image exposes major scandal... if you're able to put two and two together...
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070621.html
NASA posts images that depict what the earth's daytime sky would look like if the atmosphere had no light scattering effect....stars visible, even with Sol in the view.
How come the astroNots claimed they couldn't see stars from the Moon or that they couldn't photograph them since the Moon has no or very negligible atmosphere?
Another NASA fraud exposed:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070621.html
With no atmosphere, earth's daytime sky would reveal stars, even with Sun in frame.
Think about it.
This does not surprise me. There are a lot of drunks in the U.S., why should we think astronauts would not also be a bunch of drunks? I think NASA should be shut down, not only for this, but also because there is not one thing they have ever done that has made my life any better. Nothing. Zippo. It's a fake technology place, that pretends to do research, while in fact all they do is provide an exciting life for people who like thrills, at the taxpayer's expense. Shut it down today.
Actually, pilots have a long history of flying drunk. You would think the selection process would effectively eliminate common pilot drunks from the program. Fact is, they don't even try to eliminate them or this would never have occurred repeatedly.
Personally I think drunk pilots should be immediately executed when caught.
Certainly not simply,"reprimanded".
I really REALLY want the names of these drunken astronauts. They must be publicly humiliated.
Strawberry @ 14:
Yea. Do find that story is getting over shadowed by this one. Odd that both came out on the same day. But the sabotage (just to a monitoring system to be delivered to the ISS. And not to the "rocket") occurred 1-1/2 weeks ago.
Now the sabotaged system was only to monitor and report physical stresses on the orbiting lab. Actually sounds pretty important. At least for the ISS.
And then there was that recent cascade computer failure on the ISS.
BOWI: a new acronym for the space age.
Blasting Off While Intoxicated : )
It wasn't a bottle of booze that made that hole in Columbia's wing.
Hooray Beer!
Drunk AND wearing adult diapers?!? Wowsers, talk about the "right stuff".......
Houston *hic* I gotta go to the can..*hic* HOUSTON! I SAID I GOTTA GO TO THE CAN!
*burp* ..ughh.. is it HOT in here? I SAID...*hic* ...I'm HOT GOD DAMMIT!! I think I'm gonna be sick...ughh....blarghhhhhhhh!!
Ruthless People @ 34:
I read an interview where Laura tells the story herself. She says that she was 17, just got her license (maybe even that very day...) and she just screwed up and ran that stop sign. Tragically and ironically the teenager she killed was her BOYFRIEND. Maybe they felt sorry for her... things were handled differently back in the day. Maybe that's what started her descent into zombie-ism - a script for Valium????
This story really Depends on alot things...Like how much inebriation really matters in flying a spaceship. If the computer is doing all the work, make mine a double.
Ain't that just awful!? Boo hoo hoo! I'm gonna write Dear Abby soon as I can find a pen! I'm just all broken up about this!
King of Mean @ 43:
I believe there has been quite a few contributions to society that the space race has created (besides Tang - yuck) - off the top of my head is velcro, mylar, dehydrated food (I didn't say it way all good).
Still, drinking on the job is not a good thing. Toss 'em out and don't tolerate any future infractions. But my vote is that this is a distraction from the other news of the wiring cutting that is
much more serious.
NASA is just better disguising its hands in the piggy bank, they try and look legit. They aint doing shit but thrill riding and preparing the Death Star that Ronnie said would keep us all safe...
"I killed a man with my car, flying a space shuttle on the sauce sounds pretty neato"-Laura Bush
I have to say very cool. Imagine being in the best thrill ride tax payer dollars can provide w/ a buzz on. I would list it up there w/ good sex at first thought. Twice as nice and better than the best Earth bound attractions can provide. Ahh. Ahh. Woooo. Wooo. Woo. Woo. Woo.
Honestly - who cares. No really! Maybe the crack team of investigative journalist, bloggers at C&L can find some definitive link between this and the neocons.
In the 60’s back when the future was what is used to be there was a comedian Bill Dana who created a character Jose Jimenez - an latino immigrant astronaut interviewed by some straight man. A line in his routine was about the most important moment in the take off sequence. His response was “The Blastoff.” “The blastoff?” asks the interviewer. “Yes the blastoff - I always take a blast before I take off.”
"So this is called the 'crash helmet'?"
"Oh I hope not."
WashStateBlue @ 5:
Yep... I wouldn't doubt for a second that the Kosmonauts had a large supply of vodka onboard the Mir. Hell... I wouldn't doubt that they were drunk before a launch.
How does "Astronauts drunk in space" to describing a love triangle where Nowak pepper sprayed the girlfriend of a fellow astronaut. That's just a shittily written article with a plausible plot. Weak. "the health report...Nasa official...but said the information is based on anonymous interviews and is unsubstantiated." Wow. Hard hitting reporting.
King of Mean @ 43:
bah...
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
Blue Rose @ 54:
I believe there has been quite a few contributions to society that the space race has created (besides Tang - yuck) - off the top of my head is velcro, mylar, dehydrated food (I didn't say it way all good)...
###
ur correct:
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
let them drink. they just ride along for the ride.
Let's see: Your sitting atop a rocket containing a million gallons of fuel that can blow up at any given time PLUS your traveling into space at 17k miles per hour. And you're gonna blame these people for ramping up the courage with the aid of a few cold ones before flight time?? Hell, I've gotta do my preflight check in the airport bar before getting on a fucking airplane!
What "flight safety risk"? You think these people actually fly the shuttle? They're just monkeys in a can.
Hey, we've got a drunk, coke-user for a president, why stop there?
I'd be drunk off my ass too given the space program's shift away from science to God.
It make for a very titillating story. Truth is that nobody flew drunk on the Space Shuttle. Do your research and discover that it was one apparent incident on a Soyuz craft and the other on a NASA training craft, neither of which were piloted by the astronaut in question. They were passengers.
I have to be drunk to go on a ride on that thing, too( I'm talking Russian made by Russian drunkards)
This is being slightly mis-reported. If there is a strict rule banning alcohol 12 hours before launch, then the astronauts were hungover, not buzz raving drunk. I agree, that qualifies as 'intoxicated,' but to use the term drunk is misleading.
Good Lord, compared to the '60s astronauts, these guys are nothin'. Gordo driving sports cars over 100 mph across the country, buzzing NASA HQ in fighter jets, and many, many parties on the beaches of Fla. Are they trying to tell us, THIS is why they lost the shuttle on W's watch? Uh-uh. Stop putting Brownie in charge, and give 'em a reasonable budget and a coherent task, and watch them go, baby, go! Of course, that was when they covered up for the personal peccadilloes of the astronauts, and the President. As long as no mob mistress ended up dead, no harm, no foul.
No, much more worrisome is, who sabotaged the computer?
Hilton, Lohan, Spears and others of that ilk can barely even leave the confines of rehab treatment without having a shine on. Don't they also qualify as being space cadettes?
Maybe next time they get busted, NASA can just shoot them off in a big rocket, equipped with sabotaged computers and be done with the whole mess. Throw in 'diaper lady' and Art Garfunkel just for good measure.
They fucking expect us to drive sober and to abide by nazifucking rules, and these guys were fucking flying spaceshuttles DRUNK?!@??!?!
Fire them, their managers, the boss and anyone they fucking know. This is a disgrace.
anybody care to think theay are drinking cuz they realize bush is in charge of the space program and there ain't a damn thing to be done about it except get in and ride???
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