Astronauts鈥 sexual affairs hit the headlines early this year. Now it鈥檚 their drinking habits.
NASA got more than it bargained for when it took a hard look at astronaut health care after lovesick Lisa Nowak tried to assault a romantic rival. A review committee uncovered multiple incidents in which NASA ignored warnings that astronauts were drunk when they reported for flights, raising red flags about behaviour and management problems as well as flight safety.
Two drinking incidents are listed in the released by NASA on Friday. In one case, an astronaut warned that a fellow astronaut was too drunk to fly a T-38 trainer jet after their scheduled shuttle flight had been cancelled due to mechanical problems, committee chair Richard Bachmann, commander of the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, said at a NASA press conference. The other case involved a NASA astronaut flying to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan.
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Bachmann provided no further details, despite insistent questioning by reporters, but did admit the panel had heard of other incidents not listed in the report. NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale said the space agency would have to verify the allegations before taking any action against the individuals involved.
The US Congress says it will push to investigate the issues raised in the report and will hold a hearing on the matter when it reconvenes in early September. 鈥淚 hope the agency will . . . not just fall back on the tired bromide that the review team鈥檚 findings are 鈥榰nproven allegations,'鈥 said Bart Gordon, chair of the US House Committee on Science and Technology. 鈥淪omething clearly seems to be broken in NASA鈥檚 system of astronaut oversight.鈥
NASA does seem to be taking notice. After receiving the report, an existing ban on astronauts drinking within 12 hours of flying T-38 training jets was extended to cover spaceflight as well. NASA quarantines astronauts for a week before flight, but allows them to have alcohol in crew quarters. Dale has no plans to alter that policy, saying, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 okay after work to go back and have a beer.鈥
Warnings ignored
Although drinking took centre stage at the press conference, it was only part of a report that focused on mental health, behaviour, and management issues. Dale expressed particular concern that warnings of potential safety problems had been ignored, and said NASA was taking steps to ensure that flight surgeons, trainers and astronauts feel free to communicate safety issues to senior managers, as the panel had recommended. Ellen Ochoa, director of flight crew operations, announced plans to have astronauts develop a formal written code of conduct, another panel recommendation.
The panel also pushed for making 鈥渂ehavioural health鈥 part of annual astronaut physicals, and putting more emphasis on psychological testing in screening candidate astronauts. Dale said NASA is accepting many of those recommendations and will study others.
But how much that can accomplish remains an open question. NASA already puts candidates through hours of psychological testing and interviews. A separate panel at the agency鈥檚 Johnson Space Center interviewed employees who had worked closely with Nowak before the incident.
Although most found her distant and shy, and some said she was sometimes demanding, few had seen changes in her behaviour. 鈥淢ost of the employees interviewed said they鈥檝e spent countless hours trying to determine if they had noticed any behaviour prior to the incident that could have alerted them to Nowak鈥檚 subsequent actions; none could think of any,鈥 concluded the , which was signed by Johnson鈥檚 director, Michael Coats.
In the end, astronauts are unlikely to avoid such scandals in the future. As Ochoa put it: 鈥淚t鈥檚 an inescapable fact that human spaceflight involves humans.鈥
