Astronauts fly when unfit for duty

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

from the July 30, 2007 edition

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Some of the panel's 30 major recommendations can be applied relatively quickly, according to Col. Richard Bachmann Jr., commander of the US Air Force's School of Aerospace Medicine and the panel's chairman. Indeed, NASA officials are moving quickly on several fronts, according to Shana Dale, NASA's deputy administrator. Not the least of these has been a specific reminder to the crew of the next shuttle mission that the agency's 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule will be strictly enforced. It prohibits astronauts from being under the influence of alcohol or its aftereffects within 12 hours of flight. Until now, officials say, it's been applied to crew members flying the agency's T-38 jet trainers, and by custom – but not explicitly – to shuttle launches.

Other panel recommendations require changes to "deep-seated, long-standing aspects of astronaut, flight surgeon, and safety cultures," Colonel Bachmann said in a briefing Friday. Among the toughest to change may be the astronaut culture: Astronauts are highly motivated, highly competitive, and aren't afraid to try to tweak the system's nose.

But that competitiveness and the desire to reach space, particularly among military fliers, can lead them to keep mum about any weaknesses that might hamper their chances, Col. Mike Mullane notes in his memoir "Riding Rockets." He writes that as an astronaut finalist, he dodged several topics in his last interview with a psychologist. "I had a 1 in 7 chance of making the astronaut cut," he writes. "I lied, even when telling the truth might have helped my cause."

The tendency of some astronauts to mask the unpleasant or uncomfortable is compounded by the decades-old mystery that surrounds crew selection in the face of "a scarce and decreasing opportunity to fly," the panel notes.

Among the Bachmann panel's recommendations: make the selection process and criteria transparent and explicit, and schedule flights as far in advance as possible to reduce anxiety.

The medical care the agency provides to astronauts is highly fragmented, the panel found, and often does not become focused until an astronaut receives a crew assignment. The panel recommends that each astronaut instead be assigned to a team of flight surgeons who will oversee that astronaut's care throughout his or her time as an astronaut. This could help encourage astronauts to speak up if they face health or behavioral problems. And it would allow physicians to spot potential problems early and intervene if necessary before problems rise to the level of safety or fitness-for-duty issues.

"It's an inescapable fact that human spaceflight involves humans," says former astronaut Ellen Ochoa, now director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center. "It's complex in terms of how we design vehicles and prepare them for flight, and it's complex in making sure that we train people – both on the ground and in orbit to carry out their tasks – to understand that everybody's human." NASA needs to have policies, expectations, and practices in place that ensure missions are conducted "as safely as we can and successfully as we can," she adds.

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