[FPSPACE] Russia denies US astronauts had chance to be inebriated

[pjp]

>From Agency France Presse

 

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Russia_denies_US_astronauts_had_cha_07292007.ht
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Russia denies US astronauts had chance to booze

 

Russia's Roskosmos space agency Sunday dismissed a suggestion in a NASA
report that a US astronaut broke the alcohol ban before take-off from the
Baikonur cosmodrome, the agency's spokesman said.

"This is utterly impossible," Igor Panarin told Interfax.

"Some two weeks before a Baikonur launch cosmonauts and astronauts are put
under constant medical surveillance, and two days before the launch they are
completely isolated from all outside contact."

Panarin was responding to the findings of a report released by the US space
agency NASA last Friday that found "heavy use of alcohol" inside the
standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" abstinence period for flight crew.

One of the two incidents cited in the report involved a Soyuz mission bound
for the International Space Station.

Panarin acknowledge that space travellers "are no monks and can drink a bit
on Earth when in good company."

But he added: "Anyone suspected of abuse would be out of the team."

The revelations at NASA, together with the discovery that a computer bound
for the International Space Station had been sabotaged, has plunged the
agency into crisis.

The US House of Representatives Science and Technology committee has called
an oversight hearing for September.