NASA shaken by sabotage, drinking claims
By MARCIA DUNN
Gosh! Could we please have one great American dream go untarnished by some kind of controversy? - JS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - America’s space agency was shaken Thursday by two startling and unrelated reports: One involved claims that astronauts were drunk before flying. The other was news from NASA itself that a worker had sabotaged a computer set for delivery to the international space station.
It was just another jolt for an operation that has had a rocky year from the start, beginning with the arrest of an astronaut accused of attacking a rival in a love triangle.
“It’s going to shake up the world, I’ll tell you that,” retired NASA executive Seymour Himmel said of the latest news. “There will be congressional hearings that you will not be able to avoid.”
News of the two latest bombshells broke within just a few hours of each other Thursday afternoon.
Aviation Week & Space Technology reported on its Web site that a special panel studying astronaut health found that on two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a safety risk.
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