Astronauts fly when unfit for duty

A panel finds that NASA culture squelches concerns about crew member health and competence.

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 30, 2007 edition

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It took the Challenger and Columbia disasters to prod NASA into changing a culture that prevented the agency from resolving critical safety issues – issues that killed two shuttle crews.

Now another panel of investigators has found echoes of that culture in NASA's managing of its astronauts and medical personnel. Space agency officials say they are moving as quickly as they can to uproot it.

The most notorious examples involve allegations that on at least two occasions an astronaut was so drunk before a flight that flight surgeons and fellow astronauts raised concerns to local managers. But the inebriated crew members were allowed to fly anyway. According to the panel's final report, released during a briefing Friday, some senior flight surgeons said their opinions on astronauts' fitness for duty are so routinely ignored that they are now less likely to report poor performance or health issues.

"There's been a lot of attention placed on the alcohol abuse, but it goes beyond that. It goes back to this culture issue, and it will take senior leadership to break through it," says Rep. Bart Gordon (D) of Tennessee, chairman of the House Science Committee. "NASA has a lot of explaining to do."

Representative Gordon says his committee will hold hearings on the matter in September after the agency finishes its next shuttle mission, scheduled for launch Aug. 9.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin called for the probe into medical and mental-health support for flight crews last February, after astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Florida on charges of battery and attempted kidnapping in a case involving a romantic triangle.

The panel of outside aerospace medicine experts – as well as a second, internal group – concluded that actions driven by passion are extremely difficult to foresee. But during the course of their interviews with 27 astronauts, flight surgeons, and crew family members, they uncovered other problems that can be as potentially dangerous to a mission as faulty hardware. Several astronauts and flight surgeons said that when they raised concerns about the health, behavior, or competence of crew members, managers disregarded the information.

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