Apparently, the altitude in orbit is not high enough for more than one of NASA’s finest. According to an independent panel, on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons or other astronauts warned that they were drunk, so drunk that they posed a flight safety risk.
You cannot have a machinist fabricating spacecraft parts who is unable to urinate in a little cup, but a DUI is space is not a problem that NASA is concerned with? I guess the sky IS no longer the limit…
An alternate view is as follows: the astronauts know how poorly designed the shuttle is, and need to throw back a few stiff ones to get back in the saddle. These are likely the more experienced ones who have actually been up a few times, and know the risks. Perhaps they were colleagues with the crews of the Challenger or Columbia. We shouldn’t judge too quickly what it takes to do that job, as much as many of us many have fantasized about a journey into space. But they should still need to pass a breathalyser before they fly a 1.7 billion dollar spacecraft.
