Official News - page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: DRUNK IN CHARGE OF A SPACESHIP

by Hazed

This story has been all over the real life papers so I wouldn't normally bother to cover it, but really, could there be a more appropriate story for Fed2 than the tale of the NASA astronauts who went into space while drunk?

A panel reviewing health issues at Nasa has found that on at least two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly while intoxicated. They also found heavy alcohol use by flight crew within the 12-hour period prior to take-off.

Now, admittedly, going into space in one of the shuttles must be a pretty scary thing to do, so I can understand that the astronauts might be tempted to knock back a bit of liquid courage, but if it's considered dangerous to drink and drive a car, then I would have thought drinking and flying a complicated space shuttle would be even more dangerous!

The disturbing thing about the report is not so much that the spacemen were stinko, it's that when doctors and other crewmembers reported their drunkenness to the bosses, the medical advice was disregarded and the boozers were allowed to fly anyway.

The report is a little short on details - it doesn't name the astronauts, or say which missions they were flying on. Nasa says its going to study and evaluate the report, and will also introduce an interim policy banning alcohol consumption for the 12 hours before a flight.

Frankly, I'm amazed they didn't already have such a rule in place!

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