Getting high to get high?

From Aviation Week:

A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.

The panel, 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.

A NASA spokesman declined comment on the findings, which were obtained by Aviation Week & Space Technology. The spokesman said a press conference has tentatively been scheduled for Friday afternoon on the issue. At the direction of Administrator Michael Griffin, NASA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard S. Williams set up the panel to review astronaut medical and psychological screening after Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 5 on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping for allegedly stalking and threatening a woman who was dating another astronaut. The attempted murder charge was subsequently dropped.

Perhaps the astronauts read the statistic that if commercial aviation killed as many people as the space shuttle that the death toll would be something like 250,000 per year and just need a bit of fortification before climbing into the thing.

Murder at NASA

From FOX News:

HOUSTON, Texas — A NASA contract worker armed with a handgun Friday killed a hostage and then himself after a nearly four-hour standoff in an office building at Johnson Space Center, Houston police said.

A second hostage, a woman, escaped with minor injuries, said Houston Police Capt. Dwayne Ready.

The gunman, an employee of Jacobs Engineering of Pasadena, Calif., shot himself once in the head more than three hours after barricading himself on the second floor of Building 44, which houses communications and tracking development lab, Ready said.

The slain hostage, a man, was likely to have been shot "in the early minutes of the whole ordeal," Ready said.

None of those involved were immediately identified.

Police Capt. Dwayne Ready said he had no idea what the man's motive was, but described him as a white man, between 50 and 60 years old, armed with one handgun.

Ready said he did not know who the man was. Phone messages left at Jacobs Engineering were not immediately returned.

The description of the gunman came from a NASA employee who had seen him, Ready said.

Police did not state whether the gunman was wearing a diaper.