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?!?!!!!

Just heard this on BBC News... IF this is true (and I can't believe it is... and details are sketchy so far) then the drink thing isn't a surprise, not after reading "Riding Rockets" (excellent book! very eye-opening ) and while part of me thinks "Hmm, they're not gods, only human... under stress... kinda human nature..." another part of me wants to grab the metal helmet rings of the suit of ANYONE doing something dumb enough to put a shuttle and its crew at risk, slam 'em up against a wall and shout at them "What the frak were you thinking?!?!? You get to fly into space AS A JOB!!! I'd KILL for that! "

As for the possibility of an individual cutting the wires, words fail me. Again, IF true, their motives are unknown, but I'm sure imaginations will run riot. I'm just gutted that at such an exciting, important time for NASA, with Barbara Morgan finally ready to fly, and Phoenix poised to blast off for Mars, this kind of garbage is going to dominate the headlines instead.

and

Google and my memory fails me, but wasn't there a situation a few years' back of a visiting Russian space official who went out on a bender and was found wandering a Florida beach in his skivvies? I can even picture the police mug shot. Or was that from The Onion.....

Yep.

WRT drinking, that's definitely a holdover from the military pilot culture...it's endemic. There isn't a USAF flying squadron in the world that doesn't have a well-stocked bar and a pool table (used to play 'crud'), and it's a deeply embedded tradition to pop a cold one (or two, or three...) after each flight, and then it's time to head over to the O-Club or downtown...you get the idea. When it comes to flying into space, though, Stu's got it absolutely right...put down the bloody bottle at least a few days beforehand, or take off that spacesuit and let me fly the goddam thing!!!

As far as 'sabotage'...seen it before also on military planes. Some truly pathetic individuals either derive a perverse satisfaction out of causing problems, or do things like this so that they can magically find the problem that's stumped others & thereby become The Hero...saw this latter phenomenon once, and needless to say the person responsible was finally caught, court-martialed and convicted, rightly so.

The sketchy circumstances known of the Shuttle case makes me think it's an example of the former, though. Apparently, the cut wires would not have posed a danger to flight (probably because FCCs are by their very nature extremely redundant in design), but it sure could have caused at least one hell of a lot of angst for the on-site maintainers, or even in the worst case a launch delay or abort.

EDIT: More recent reports seem to indicate that this was in fact an ISS FCC...if so, even more puzzling. Sick people as described seem to crave immediate gratification; seems a lot more sinister to mess with an ISS component, esp. given the recent control difficulties. Makes me wonder where NASA is getting these things fixed..."Joe's Deli & Critical Avionics"?

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

Nasa Press Conf. about it starting now.

Doug

Try "NASA takes swift action after report of astronaut drinking LEAKED"

or even better

"NASA calls press conference to qualm storm over embarrassing leaked report"

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.