Slashdot Mirror
Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem
Pcol writes "Aviation Week reports that astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk. A review panel, convened in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest to review astronaut medical and psychological screening, also reported "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members. Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon, says it's a tradition for crew members to gather for a barbecue on the eve of a shuttle launch, and these gatherings sometimes include alcohol and a toast but that the greater problem is that preparation before a flight can leave astronauts sleep-deprived and overworked. Meanwhile at Frenchie's Italian Restaurant, a popular astronaut hangout in Houston, owner Frankie Camera disputed the reports: "The Mercury astronauts may have been a little more wild (than later ones) but I did banquets for them and never really saw any of them drink so much they were out of control or drunk.""
It's great to see hundreds of slashtards posting about something they know nothing of. There are very few situations that the pilot and crew have not already seen in the simulator. They have the simulator for a reason. Every survivable abort profile is practiced. If you read the report instead of listened to the bullshit on CNN, you'd have seen that the problem is not Alcohol, it's high intensity people who routinely work to the limits. They're largely drawn from military pilots and they act just the same. High intensity people don't do down time well. While the whining fatasses on slashdot talk about how bad it is that they had a toast the night before going flying, realize that they're riding a hell of a bomb, and they're going to get everything perfect.
and yes, I am a military pilot.
You don't know a lot about fighter jocks, do you? Read Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff", and this story immediately becomes a lot less puzzling.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Considering that, on average, they have a 1 in 50 chance of going "BOOM!" or other disaster, and that the shuttle fleet ain't getting any younger ...
NASA originally estimated the odds of a disaster as being as low as 1 in 100,000. Even their current "guestimate" of 1 in 100 is off by half.
An MTBF of 1 000 000 hours does not mean an average disk lasts 1 000 000 hours. Disks also have a lifetime rating - perhaps 25 000 hours for a consumer drive. The MTBF generally means that during the design lifetime, on average one disk will fail for every 1 000 000 hours of use. For a 25 000 hour lifetime, that means that 2.5% of drives will fail during their design lifetime, which is pretty close to the numbers I've seen in large-scale studies. After the design lifetime, all bets are off. No drive will last 1 000 000 hours of operation and no drive manufacturer claims they will.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News