NASA has been hit with another scandal. Intrigued, I watched the CNN coverage today only to repeatedly roll my eyes at all the references to the “Right Stuff”. God who writes this copy? Kind of makes me sorry for Wolf Blizer who has to read that swill. Well maybe not that sorry.
It appears there is a Russian connection in all this. According the NASA report’s findings, one American astronaut flew on a Russian spacecraft after some heavy pre-flight drinking. You guessed it. The Russians have a little toasting ceremony several hours before being shot into space like monkeys. Here is how Dr. Ellen Ochoa described the ritual during Friday’s press conference:
There is a ceremony in Kazakhstan that happens about 7-1/2 hours before launch. I don’t know if crew members have actually ever drank alcohol. I have even been in the ceremony, and I still don’t know the answer to that. It is really a situation in which there is a chance to say a few parting words, and the Russians who, of course, manage and sort of control the practices of that, for them it is a great tradition. In their society, it was done with Yuri Gagarin went and flew, and they had a few parting words.
Really, the intent of the ceremony is to share a few special moments with a crew that is about to go off on a mission. I actually don’t know if any crews have ever had a sip of the champagne that is handed around or not. That is a potential situation, though, in which alcohol is present in that 12 hours. I don’t believe there is any –well, I know I don’t have any concern about there being a crew member under the influence or effects of alcohol.
The policy that I have put out explicitly states the 12 hours. I am going to be having discussions with members of the Russian Space Agency to talk over this and to talk with our Expedition crew members, to talk about how we can respect the culture and traditions of the Russian Space Agency and making sure that we are doing everything that complies with our practice and our desire to make sure that everything is safe and that we have no issues with safety or mission success.
Gagarin was a notorious alcoholic, so that might not be the best example to use.
Then again, maybe he is the perfect example.
Sean, this is SO interesting! I watched this story on NTV last night. It was a long piece, about 7 minutes, and the whole story was about how the West has this stereotype about Russians drinking (cut to film of Armagedden with Russian astronaut either drunk or dazed) but it turns out that according to Aviation Magazine it’s American astronauts who get drunk. Even though they quoted the maazine that the astronauts had apparently been tested for alcohol 12 hours before the flight, the reporter said several times that US astronauts were flying drunk. There was ABSOLUTELY no mention of the Russian connection at all.
The story went on to discuss the “sabotage” of the computers and then dragged in the woman astronaut who tried to kidnap her rival (with the standard mention of the pampers she wore), and then returned to the drunk American astronauts. The only saving grace of the piece, which was a fine example of demonizing Americans, was a sound byte of a Russian astronaut, who said that he’d never encountered any drunk American astronauts in all his years of working with NASA.
So the Aviation Magazine piece that started all this wrote about the drinking before flights in Kazakhstan?
I agree with you; a shot of vodka right before take off seems about right to me.
Interesting. I have been interpreting aerospace since early design stages of the ISS in 1994. I remember struggling with a Russian space program argo “???? ?? ????????? ???????? ?????” where ???????? ????? is a reference to ??? – ??????????? ???????? ?????, that consists of the payload and the fourth stage. Needless to say, there is no direct equivalent in English.
http://interfax.ru/r/B/politics/2.html?id_issue=11799546
28 ???? 2007 ????, 19:17
? ?????????? ????????? ??????????? ????????? ????????????? ?????? ????????????? ???????????? ??? ?????? ? ?????????
??????. 28 ????. ?????????-??? – ?????-????????? ?????????? ????? ??????? ????????????? ?????? ??????????? ????, ??? ???? ?? ???????????? ??????????? ??? ?????? ? ????????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ? ??????????????? ?????????, ??? ? ??? ???????? ????????? ??? ? ???.
“??? ?????????? ?????????. ??????????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ? ????????? ?????????? ? ?????????? ???????? ?????????? ??? ?????????? ??????????? ??????. ?? ???? ????? ???, ??? ??????????, “??????? ?? ??????????”. ??? ??????????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?????????”, – ?????? ?.???????.
“?????????? ????????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????????? ???????????, ?? ? ??????????????? ???????????. ??????? ????????? ??????? ?? ??????????? ???????? ??????????. ???????? ? ????????????? ??????”, – ??????????? ?.???????.
Please. If 70 years of Soviet rule taught Russians anything, it’s how to break a rule without getting caught.
I’ve little doubt this excerpt describes the official Cosmodrome rules.
However, I’ve even less doubt that ingenious cosmonauts were inspired to find a way around these rules, if they felt like a small nip before departure.
If 70 years of Soviet rule taught Russians anything,it’s how…
to send drunk people to orbit. So far only two other countries learned how to do this.
In fact – one country learned it from Germans, another – from Russians.
Don’t kid yourself.
The Russians learned rocketry from the Germans as well.
“During World War II, the Nazi regime in Germany funded an unprecedented effort to build rocket weapons. Capitalizing on the experience accumulated by German rocket enthusiasts since the second half of the 1920s, a group of engineers at the secret center in Peenemunde developed a ballistic missile of incomparable size and range. Officially dubbed Vergeltungswaffe-2, or “vengeance weapon-2,” the cigar-shaped rocket could reach targets more than 300 kilometers away. The A-4 became a paramount of a multi-fold rocket development program, which also included antiaircraft and cruise missiles, as well as piloted rocket-propelled fighter planes. Although all this technology could not prevent German defeat in World War II, allied nations fighting Germany, paid close attention to the emerging rocketry. Ultimately, the A-4 technology became a root of the missile development programs in the US, Russia and China.”