No doubt NASA administrator Mike Griffin wishes that the tale of a diaper-wearing astronaut who drove to Florida with black gloves, a wig, a BB pistol and ammunition, pepper spray, a 2-pound drilling hammer, rubber tubing, plastic garbage bags, an eight-inch folding knife and other items, in order to “confront” the other woman in an astronaut love triangle, was the stuff of “urban legends.”
Instead, in a recent press conference, Griffin called the report of alcohol abuse by astronauts just prior to flight, by an independent review panel that Griffin commissioned, the stuff of urban legends.
The head of that commission, Col Richard Bauchmann, Jr., called b.s on that this week when he testified to the House Science and Technology subcommittee (Nick Lampson chairs that). His concern is my concern. In its review of the alcohol incidents, NASA interviewed people face to face. The independent committee of experts got their information from astronauts and flight surgeons anonymously. How can we be sure everyone who was interviewed by NASA about the alcohol incidents felt their job would be safe if they told what they knew? I also know that NASA has had a deaf ear in the past in listening to their own people about safety concerns, so it didn’t come as complete shock to me that the people who give a go for astronauts to fly might dismiss flight surgeon recommendations.
Bauchmann, commander of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, had this to say:
“We understand the outrage that some members of NASA have expressed at this particular finding,” Bachmann said of the drinking allegations. “However, public statements that such things are simply impossible, challenging the veracity of these finding, referring to them as unproven allegations or urban legends, rather than acknowledging how difficult raising such concerns can be, do not encourage openness and safety.”
Bachmann was referring to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s remarks last week, when he dismissed the allegations of excessive drinking as “urban legends.”
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Bachmann said the drinking incidents and the allegations of NASA leadership disregarding safety warnings were reported to his committee by eyewitnesses to the events. Their testimony was voluntary, he said.
The fact that all current NASA flight surgeons have since signed a letter denying that they were ever aware of alcohol abuse by astronauts — or that they felt their medical advice was ignored by superiors — increases his concern that NASA employees feel too intimidated to stand by the allegations they made privately and anonymously to outside experts, Bachmann said.
Bachmann agreed with Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., that his panel and O’Connor essentially interviewed many of the same people at NASA and came to different conclusions.
Somebody is lying or hiding the truth, apparently. If the panel and O’Connor (NASA’s review guy) really did interview some of the same people, why did these people tell different stories about something so serious? This question needs to be answered.
I can’t help but think that if I worked for the space program and had serious, career-ending information about astronauts, I’d think through it VERY carefully before I said it out loud where it would get back to Griffin – with my name attached to the allegations. Especially since I would know that he had already been dismissive, to the point of belittling, a whole panel of experts who reported something he didn’t like.
NASA is supposed to be doing an anonymous survey as a follow-up to the interviews. I’ll be curious to find out if this next round of information collecting matches what the independent panel heard from NASA personnel.
I’m going to quit debating my neighbor that we actually landed on the moon.