WASHINGTON, 28 July 2007 — NASA, America’s space agency, suffered unexpected turbulence yesterday when it was reported that astronauts were allowed to fly on the shuttle while drunk. This was followed by news of sabotage to the cargo of a forthcoming mission. The troubled National Aeronautics and Space Administration planned to hold a news conference later yesterday to address the disturbing reports.
According to Aviation Week & Space Technology, an internal NASA panel found “heavy use of alcohol” inside the standard 12-hour “bottle to throttle” abstinence period for NASA flight-crew members.
America’s space agency suffered a second blow Thursday when it was also revealed a NASA employee had sabotaged a computer set for delivery to the International Space Station.
Engineers checking the shuttle Endeavour, which is on the launch pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Center ahead of its scheduled liftoff to the international space station on Aug. 7, found electrical wires on a computerized monitoring device had been cut.
NASA launched an inquiry into the damage, believed to have been caused by an agency subcontractor, but stressed that it posed no danger to the shuttle or its astronauts. The device, which measures physical stresses on the International Space Station’s external arms, “will be repaired and it will fly on this flight,” NASA’s associate administrator, Bill Gerstenmaier, said.
The miserable day for NASA was rounded off last night when a veteran worker at the Kennedy Space Center pleaded guilty in court to stealing $150,000 of agency money. Elizabeth Osborne, 52, who had worked at Cape Canaveral for more than 30 years, faces up to 10 years in jail.
The reports which broke within hours of each other on Thursday were the latest jolts in a rocky year for NASA, which began with the arrest of an astronaut accused of attacking a love rival.
Yesterday morning, like clockwork, cable news patter launched clever puns, reminiscent of their treatment of “Astro-nut” Nowak. CNN opened a segment with the caption “Drunk Before Launchtime” and another newsreader introduced the story with “Houston, We Have A Drinking Problem…” Aviation Week said the panel was created following the arrest in February of former space shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak.
She was accused of attacking the girlfriend of a fellow astronaut — her romantic rival — with pepper spray in a Florida parking lot. Nowak pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping, battery and burglary with assault and was dismissed by NASA in March.
Safety is a major concern in shuttle missions after damage sustained by the Columbia craft on launch caused it to break up on re-entry in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Already under pressure over a range of issues, NASA could face a full-blown crisis as US lawmakers focus on the account of allegedly drunken astronauts.
“If the reports of drunken astronauts being allowed to fly prove to be true, I think the agency will have a lot of explaining to do,” said Bart Gordon, chairman of the House of Representatives’ science and technology committee.
“That’s not the ‘right stuff’ as far as I’m concerned,” he said, alluding to a 1983 film about early NASA crews, “The Right Stuff,” based on Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book.
NASA suffered another setback in April, when contractor Bill Phillips sneaked a revolver past security at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and barricaded himself inside a building.
He duct-taped a female co-worker to a chair and shot a male colleague dead before turning the gun on himself.
The agency also faced political criticism in May when NASA chief Michael Griffin drew fire for comments on the hot topic of harmful climate change. He publicly questioned the need to tackle global warming.
