KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) — Astronaut Scott Kelly is never one to mince words, and there is no doubt he is not very happy about the rumors that NASA astronauts have mixed alcohol and rocket fuel, so to speak…
Shuttle commander Scott Kelly was outraged by the report that said astronauts were drunk on the shuttle.
The shuttle Endeavour commander called CNN Space Correspondent Miles O’Brien on Monday from the astronaut crew quarters here at the Cape.
CNN: This is Miles O’Brien. Can I help you?
KELLY: Hmz? Wazzat? Oh! Miles! Miles.
CNN: Speaking. Who’s this?
KELLY: It’s meee, Miles. Commander Kelly. The shuttle commandander. Doncha know me?
CNN: Oh. Of course. What can I -
KELLY: It’s bullshit!! Those reports about the - those things they wrote about the… sayin’ that we’re drinking!
CNN: Well, we are just going with what was in the report -
KELLY: Miles, Miles… lissen to me. Can - can I call you Dave?
CNN: It’s “Miles.”
KELLY: I know that. You fuckin’ guys. Trzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
CNN: Scott? Scott?
KELLY: HMzzz - wha? Whaddyou want?
CNN: You called me to talk about astronaut’s drinking…
KELLY: Don’t mind if I do…
CNN: No, you wanted to talk about the report.
KELLY: I love you, Miles. You know that?
[etc.]
Fanny Roborat
20 comments
tim
August 8, 2007 at 11:21 am
1Astronauts crazy and drunk…this time, society has REALLY lost its innocence! You can ignore the other 27 times we lost it.
Hanna
August 8, 2007 at 12:43 pm
2Chuck Yeager would be shocked and appalled.
It's Pat!
August 8, 2007 at 12:56 pm
3Ack! They are humans! Everyone run!
Just when we thought astronauts were at worst robots, and at best superhumans (”the right stuff”), now we find out they poop and pee like me. Or, maybe not like me, I’m just sayin’.
OT: they are still trying to get the missing out from under the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis. It is such a huge heavy mess. I still wonder after looking at what happened how the number of casualties was so low.
dee
August 8, 2007 at 3:55 pm
4I don’t know about the rest of you, but the only way I’d be sitting on top of a two-ton rocket ready to blast off the earth would be after downing copious amounts of bourbon. In space, no one can hear you hurl.
Landis
August 8, 2007 at 5:13 pm
5Two-ton? According to this wikipedia article it’s closer to 2,237 tons! And that would make for COPIOUS copious amounts of bourbon.
But seriously: how much of an absolute bad-ass do you have to be to actually spend your LIFE getting ready for this, getting a chance at maybe two or three flights maximum, and show up to work drunk?! Just like former-Astronaut Nowak was obviously a little unbalanced I don’t doubt that this could have happened by perhaps one person, but I do seriously doubt that it’s a normal occurrence or that many of them do that.
Still, I quite enjoyed the interview.
cooper
August 8, 2007 at 5:43 pm
6Um… dee, you really have to watch what you say on this blog because the rocket geeks among us will call you on it. Here’s launch video from earlier today - http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html
Maybe they can’t hear you hurl in space, but it is a pure bitch to clean up. (BTW, dee, another cute stray kitten - calico, about 6 weeks old - has appeared at our back door this week looking for a handout. Let me know if you’re interested. My daughter is going to college in Greensboro, so it would not be a problem to drop it by.)
Gerbeel Haamster
August 8, 2007 at 7:26 pm
7Ummm, wonder what the probable cause is gonna be when they pull him over?
“Well, sir, you were weaving back there.”
Don’t really understand it. When I fly, it’s always with two valium and three bloody mary.
dee
August 9, 2007 at 4:24 am
8Ah — this reminds me of a scene from my freshman year in college:
The setting — A lovely, clear night in Ann Arbor. A couple walks out from below a canopy of trees and the young girl looks up and remembers her Tennessee Williams:
The Girl: Oh look! A “silver slipper of a moon”!
The Boy: Have you ever seen the moon through a really good telescope?
The End.
dee
August 9, 2007 at 4:28 am
9And cooper — I’m trying to get a friend of mine to take in a beautiful, neglected white adult male cat who spends more time at this place I’m housesitting than at his own house, where he’s not welcome inside. The housesitting person would take him in in a heartbeat if she didn’t already have an elderly, blind and deaf cat of her own and we’ve been trying to find a home for him since his “owners” won’t miss him if he suddenly disappears.
But if she passes on this one, I might let her know about the calico. I’m staying right off Robinhood and Peace Haven so you already know the neighborhood.
Fran
August 9, 2007 at 7:17 am
10Oh Dee, what a lovely - and absolutely accurate - conversation!
David
August 9, 2007 at 5:16 pm
11Cooper,
A hundred and effing four in Charlotte today? Jeebus. Forget any complaints about 98 anyone picked up via esp from down here in “Greater” Orlando. What did it hit in Greensboro, dee?
I chuckled painfully at the little tale (which I assume led to only a little tail…). I’m one of those whatever-we-are males who finds the moon through a telescope quite romantic, too.
Nota bene, it ain’t the size of the rocket, it’s the thrust of the bastard.
dee
August 9, 2007 at 6:56 pm
12Officially we set a record at 100 today. although my car read 108 while heading home this afternoon. As I write this at 11 PM it’s 89 (heat index at 92). Thank Lobster I’m running someone else’s AC.
cooper
August 10, 2007 at 3:29 am
13dee, 104 in Charlotte - but it’s a humid, super-saturated heat.
David
August 10, 2007 at 5:12 am
14Remind you of those non-drought summer days in Florida, except on thermo-steroids, cooper?
Dale
August 11, 2007 at 12:15 am
15Weird weather? You want weird weather? It was in the upper 90s (95% humidity) on Tuesday, we had a tornado on Wednesday (the first to hit Brooklyn since the 1890s) and in the 50s yesterday. Who knew the Apocalypse would be so hard to dress for?
G. Versace
August 11, 2007 at 8:22 am
16I KNEW!!! But would anyone listen? Nooooooo!
Murray
August 11, 2007 at 9:29 am
17“Chuck Yeager would be shocked and appalled”.
Hanna, you haven’t read Chuck’s autobiography. If he wasn’t in the air he was on the ground drinking. He failed to be promoted several times for getting drunk, driving some vehicle at mach speeds, and crashing into something important.
You have to think that any one who risks his life for a living, is willing to risk lots of other things, and those who demand him to risk his life are willing to look away when they “let off steam”.
Murray
August 11, 2007 at 9:34 am
18Jane was dealing with 102 in Columbia MD, while here at Grouseland it was in the upper 80s. Still not comfortable but liveable. Thank Lobster for mountains.
cooper
August 12, 2007 at 8:39 am
19No one’s mentioned the terrific title for this post. Well, I like it anyway.
David
August 12, 2007 at 9:44 am
20cooper, I just took it as one more example of Adam’s keen wit, kind of like Of course Adam would go with this. The guy just doesn’t seem to know how to miss the mark, does he (note hint of envy).
Upper 80s not comfortable, Murray? How easily we become spoiled. At the moment, the upper 80s down here elicit the comment “Cooling down - feels good.” 102 anywhere in Maryland, except at an air-conditioned restaurant/bar eating crabs and getting sudsed - that’s rough.