Astronauts ‘drunk during missions’

By Virginie Montet  THE US space agency faced a full-blown crisis today as US politicians promised to probe how NASA allowed astronauts to fly missions while drunk as well as the sabotage of in-flight computers.

The US House of Representatives Science and Technology committee called an oversight hearing for September, after a NASA report found astronauts had shown up to work drunk.

House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee chairman Mark Udall warned that the report was a “wake-up” call.

“We need to understand what happened and why, whether anyone is going to be held accountable, and what the agency is going to do to fix these apparently deep-seated problems,” he said.

The report released by NASA found “heavy use of alcohol” inside the standard 12-hour “bottle to throttle” abstinence period for flight crew.

NASA has recently regained its confidence after the 2003 breakup of Columbia with seven aboard, and years of testing to prove the reliability of its shuttle program, as well as its management procedures.

However, in February, NASA’s reputation was sullied again when astronaut Lisa Nowak allegedly tried to kidnap a woman dating another astronaut.

In the wake of Nowak’s arrest, NASA set up an internal panel to review astronaut health, and was handed reports of astronaut drinking.

Air Force physician Richard Bachmann, who authored the report, said one drinking incident came ahead of a shuttle mission that was eventually delayed.

The astronauts then wanted to fly on a T-38 supersonic jet used by NASA.

The second case involved a Russian Soyuz mission bound for the International Space Station (ISS), Colonel Bachmann said.

There was “no way to know if they were isolated incidents or the top of large iceberg”, he said.

NASA said: “Both flight surgeons and astronauts identified some episodes of heavy use of alcohol by astronauts in the immediate preflight period which has led to flight safety concerns.”

“However, the individuals were still permitted to fly,” it said.

The panel interviewed 14 astronauts, eight flight surgeons, five family members and other staff for the 12-page report, which noted that astronauts lacked regular mental-health assessments and felt pressure to hide their problems.

There was more bad news for the space agency this week when NASA officials said workers found a computer due to be transported by shuttle Endeavour in an August mission to the ISS had been apparently sabotaged, its wires cut.

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