{"id":257,"date":"2007-07-27T19:00:58","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T02:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=257"},"modified":"2007-07-28T16:53:34","modified_gmt":"2007-07-28T23:53:34","slug":"crocked-cosmonauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"Pickled . . . in Spaaace!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report Uncovers Astronauts\u2019 Heavy Alcohol Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oh my.\u00a0 Here’s what I read between the lines of the linked article: NASA, in the wake of the Lisa Nowak incident<\/a>, has been\u00a0busy hunting witches in the astronaut program.\u00a0 Astronaut pilots, astronaut mission specialists, and astronaut flight surgeons are turning on each other.\u00a0 It must be a horrible time to be an astronaut.<\/p>\n

I was an Air Force pilot for 24 years.\u00a0 For 20 of those years I was an Air Force fighter pilot.\u00a0 Pilots are a hard-drinkin’ bunch, but fighter pilots drink the rest of ’em under the table.<\/p>\n

In all that time, I flew twice when I shouldn’t have, not because I was drunk but because I still felt a little crappy after a hangover.\u00a0 I never flew within 12 hours of drinking and never would have considered doing so.\u00a0 I never knew of any other fighter pilot flying drunk.\u00a0 Never.\u00a0 In my time as chief of flight safety for Pacific Air Forces,\u00a0when I oversaw investigations of major aircraft accidents\u00a0involving fighter,\u00a0helicopter, transport, and\u00a0tanker pilots, alcohol was never a factor.<\/p>\n

So at the risk of seeming naive, I don’t believe NASA astronauts\u00a0fly drunk.\u00a0 I think personal animosities within the astronaut program are behind the allegations.\u00a0 That, and an eagerness<\/strike> a willingness to believe the worst of astronauts on the part of NASA administrators, who are under the gun from congress and the executive branch as a result of Lisa Nowak losing her grip.<\/p>\n

How did this get out to the media in the first place?\u00a0 And damn,\u00a0aren’t those whores having a grand time with it?\u00a0 Christ, listening to National Public Radio’s coverage<\/a> today, you’d have thought space cops had busted an entire\u00a0shuttle crew for weaving on orbital insertion or something.\u00a0 Funny how they didn’t bother to mention that NASA’s investigation has unearthed hearsay but no actual evidence.<\/p>\n

There’s bad juju at NASA, all right, but I don’t think the astronauts’ drinking habits are the cause of it.\u00a0 I think internal resentments and an organizational\u00a0witch hunt are the root of the problem.\u00a0 And when there’s a witch hunt going on, hearsay allegations are more than sufficient to prosecute and convict.<\/p>\n

Damn, I wish I hadn’t given up drinking.\u00a0 I’d like to lift a glass to\u00a0astronauts who drink!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Report Uncovers Astronauts\u2019 Heavy Alcohol Use. Oh my.\u00a0 Here’s what I read between the lines of the linked article: NASA, in the wake of the Lisa Nowak incident, has been\u00a0busy hunting witches in the astronaut program.\u00a0 Astronaut pilots, astronaut mission specialists, and astronaut flight surgeons are turning on each other.\u00a0 It must be a horrible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,16,14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-flying","category-media","category-military","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}