spacetoday.net: NASA survey refutes claims of intoxicated astronauts

NASA survey refutes claims of intoxicated astronauts

Posted: Thu, Jan 24, 2008, 8:06 AM ET (1306 GMT)
A survey of NASA's astronaut corps released on Wednesday found no evidence that astronauts were intoxicated immediately before any mission. The survey, which included 90 percent of the agency's astronauts and flight surgeons, found only one case where an astronaut was impaired by a reaction to alcohol and prescription medicine several days before a launch, but received medical attention and flew as planned. The survey refutes claims made in a report last year by an independent panel that astronauts were intoxicated on at least two occasions, once when a shuttle mission was scrubbed and another immediately before a Soyuz launch. The chairman of that panel told the Houston Chronicle that he stood by his panel's report, despite the results of the new survey.