Drunken astronauts and sabotage shock for NASA

America’s space agency has been rocked by reports of astronauts drunk before flying and a NASA worker sabotaging a computer bound for the international space station.

It was yet 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.

That scandal was followed by a freak hailstorm that tore into a space shuttle on the launch pad that set back the year’s flight schedule. Then there was a shooting at Johnson Space Centre in Houston by an employee who ultimately killed himself.

“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 last night.

Aviation Week & Space Technology reported on its website that a 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.

The independent panel also found “heavy use of alcohol” before launch, the magazine reported, although that drinking was within the standard 12-hour “bottle-to-throttle” rule.

A Nasa official confirmed the report contained those details, but said they were from anonymous interviews and not substantiated. NASA will discuss the health report today.

The Aviation Week story did not say how long ago the alleged incidents took place, nor did it say whether it involved pilots or other crew members.

At a news conference to discuss the upcoming space shuttle launch set for August 7, NASA’s space operations chief was asked repeatedly about the drunken astronaut report.

The manager, Bill Gerstenmaier, would only say that he had never seen an intoxicated astronaut before flight or been involved in any disciplinary action related to that.

But Gerstenmaier revealed that an employee for a NASA sub-contractor had cut the wires in a computer that was about to be loaded into the shuttle Endeavour for launch.

The sub-contractor, which he would not name, contacted NASA as soon as it learned that another computer had been damaged deliberately, Gerstenmaier said. Had the contractor not discovered the problem, Nasa would have uncovered it by testing the computer before launch, he said, adding that safety was not an issue.

He refused to speculate on the worker’s motive or say where the sabotage occurred. He said it did not happen in Florida and had nothing to do with a strike at the Kennedy Space Centre by a machinists’ union.

NASA hopes to fix the computer in time for launch next month. It’s intended to be installed inside the space station to collect data from strain gauges on a major outside beam.

Former shuttle commander Eileen Collins said she was stunned to learn of the astronaut alcohol claims.

“I’m anxious to hear more details because this is very out of character from anything I have ever experienced,” she said.

Collins said she feared it would hurt the image of the astronauts, at least in the short term. “I hope people can really look at the good things astronauts do,” she said.

Himmel, who retired in 1981 as associate director for what is now Glenn Research Centre in Cleveland, was not surprised to learn the information was anonymous.

“Let’s face it. Astronauts are a bunch of brothers and sisters, OK, and they’ll cover each other’s backsides because they’re part of the team,” he said.

“And who knows what the role of the particular ones was to be. If he was just to sit in the middle seat somewhere and just be a passenger, you kind of say, ’Well, gee, I hope he doesn’t vomit on the way up’.”

The independent panel reviewing astronaut health and Nasa’s psychological screening process was created following the arrest in February of former space shuttle flier Lisa Nowak.

Nowak, sacked by NASA in March, is accused of attacking the girlfriend of a fellow astronaut – her romantic rival – with pepper spray in a car park at Orlando International Airport.

She has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping, battery and burglary with assault.