U.S. NASA said Wednesday there was no evidence that two crew members drank heavily before their respective launches.
Aerospace medicine experts reported that two astronauts, one from Cape Canaveral and one from Kazakhstan, were heavily drunk right before their respective launches.
None of those surveyed last fall — 87 of 98 astronauts and all 31 flight surgeons — reported seeing a crew member drinking alcohol on launch day.
The anonymous survey uncovered a single case of "perceived impairment" by someone just a day or more from blasting into space, and it turned out to be a reaction between prescription medicine and alcohol.
NASA officials, citing medical privacy, refused to say when or where the episode occurred, only that it happened on one of the final days leading up to launch but not on launch day. The crew member ultimately was cleared for flight and rocketed into space.
The officials said they did not know whether the specified case was one of the two alleged cases of astronaut drunkenness cited in a report by outside medical experts last summer.
NASA has yet to receive any proof or information about astronauts drinking heavily in the 12 hours before liftoff, said Ellen Ochoa, deputy director of Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We really never understood from the beginning exactly what might have led to the comment in the health care report," Ochoa said. "We've tried to run it to ground. We haven't uncovered anything. I don't know of any issues associated with alcohol before flight."
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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