August 31, 2007— How do you upstage Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader? Well, the latest twists in the Lisa Nowak court case and the allegations of astronauts cleared to fly while drunk seems to have done the job nicely.
The "force" apparently wasn’t with NASA on this story. Much of the new focus this week was on the defense team in the Lisa Nowak court case. Her attorneys managed to convince an Orange County Circuit judge to allow the former astronaut to remove her electronic ankle bracelet prior to her trial on charges of attempted battery and kidnapping. That twist, in the story of an alleged astronaut love triangle, followed word that Nowak’s legal team may pursue a temporary insanity defense. On top of that, NASA issued its own report on allegations of astronauts being cleared for flight while drunk. The agency’s safety chief Bryan O’Connor spent a month interviewing everyone from astronauts to the food service workers who served flight crews their meals to see if there was any evidence that astronauts flew while impaired. The answer was no, but during a press briefing, an interesting question was raised. Why couldn’t NASA require the independent review committee be required to divulge whoever claimed that, on at least two occasions, astronauts were cleared to fly while intoxicated. NASA says it didn’t have the authority to do that, and that the agency says it does encourage staff to come forward with their concerns in anonymity. A case can be made that strong-arming testimony might spook future whistle blowers from talking. Anyway, I’m taking Labor Day week off, but I wanted to say "thanks" again to everyone who has, or plans to, vote in the "Name Pat’s Blog" contest. WMFE will continue to take votes and suggestions through the end of next week, so there’s plenty of time if you’d like to put in your "two cents". We’ve had close to one hundred votes and suggestions, which is a great response, but there’s room for more. Everyone who votes or suggests a name will be in the drawing for a signed copy of my new book "Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program". Go ahead and vote anyway ;) Photo courtesy of the BBC |
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In honor of the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie "Star Wars", (yes, I did see it in the theater back then) George Lucas and NASA announced this week that the prop Light Sabre used by actor Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) will be flown aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during its planned October mission.