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NASA file
Cosmonauts gather to have some cognac on the Mir space station in 1997, hours after a flash fire nearly killed them. Alexander Lazutkin is at far right. The picture was taken by NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who passed up the opportunity to imbibe.
A retired cosmonaut says Russian doctors have sent alcoholic beverages along with spacefliers for years to keep them "in tone" and neutralize tension.
This week's comments from Alexander Lazutkin, who lived aboard Russia's Mir space station during one of the tensest episodes in space history, confirm what most observers have long known about Moscow's space effort. The Russians have looser standards than NASA when it comes to drinking alcohol in orbit — and if there's cognac or vodka aboard the International Space Station, they've been able to hide it pretty well.
It was a different story on Mir, however. There, the Americans were guests, and stood by while their Russian colleagues imbibed the occasional stress-reliever or New Year's toast. (Click over to this archived item and scroll down to "Do Astronauts and Alcohol Mix?" for further background.)
On Monday, Lazutkin discussed the history of drinking in space with journalists at Moscow's Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, where he's the deputy director. "During prolonged space missions, especially at the beginning of the Space Age, we had alcoholic drinks in the cosmonauts' rations," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying Monday. "This was cognac, which the doctors recommended for use. We used it to stimulate our immune system and on the whole to keep our organisms in tone."
Later, a type of ginseng liqueur (literally, "liqueur from the eleutherococcus") was occasionally consumed, he said.
During Lazutkin's stint aboard Mir in 1997, an unpiloted supply vehicle collided with one of the space station's modules, opening up a leak that almost forced an emergency evacuation. Lazutkin said he and his crewmates definitely opened the liquor cabinet after that incident.
"Yes, we resorted to alcohol during our flight. But this was by authorization of the Ministry of Public Health," he said. RIA Novosti quoted Lazutkin as saying that alcohol was "recommended for neutralizing the harmful effect of the atmosphere" — though it's not clear whether he was referring to the air or the working conditions.
NASA says its astronauts have not used alcohol in space, although the agency found itself in the middle of a controversy back in 2007 when an independent panel passed along concerns about pre-flight drinking. At the time, NASA said it was not able to confirm any flight risks linked to alcohol consumption. Since then, NASA has tightened up its policies on alcohol and drug use even more. Such prudishness may well leave Russian doctors, and Lazutkin as well, shaking their heads.
"How can you greet the New Year without champagne?" Lazutkin asked.
The reason for Lazutkin's session with reporters was not to discuss the cosmonauts' drinking habits, but to announce the winner of a passenger ticket on Armadillo Aerospace's suborbital spacecraft, arranged through the Virginia-based Space Adventures travel company. Evgeny Kovalev of St. Petersburg won the ticket in a contest sponsored by the Efes brewery, and became Armadillo's first confirmed passenger.
Space Adventures' Russian representative, Sergei Kostenko, said the current plan called for Armadillo's craft to have its first piloted test flight in 2012. Passengers would be put on board after five or six additional test flights, he was quoted as saying in a RIA Novosti report. He also said about 200 applicants are on the list for the $102,000-per-person space tour packages.
So will Kovalev and other suborbital spacefliers be sipping cognac to celebrate flying on Armadillo's spaceship? Don't count on it.
"No alcoholic drinks will be consumed during the Armadillo Aerospace/Space Adventures’ suborbital spaceflights," Stacey Tearne, Space Adventures' vice president for communication, told me in an e-mail.
Would you go along with having a no-alcohol policy for spaceflight, or would you agree with Lazutkin that there'd be little harm in drinking a slightly intoxicating toast while you're taking your six-figure ride into space? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Update for 2:30 p.m. ET Oct. 15: NBC News space analyst James Oberg sends along this photographic footnote:
"A delicious backstory to this article is how the lead photo of the medicinal cognac party ever reached the public. When Jerry Linenger returned from Mir in mid-1997, his photographs were processed into the NASA internal archive system, and I became aware of the scene (one of two shots) by means I still need to protect. But when I formally requested a copy for publication, from the NASA Public Affairs Office, the request was denied — reportedly on direct orders from astronaut Frank Culbertson, then the head of NASA's Shuttle-Mir office while angling for a future spaceflight of his own (which he did get, on ISS, in 2001). But my subsequent formal request via the Freedom of Information Act eventually shook the photos free — only because I was able to cite the exact photo ID numbers [if I hadn't originally known the photos existed, I doubt they'd ever have been released]. I used the photo in my 2002 book "Star-Crossed Orbits," and provided this particular image to MSNBC as well. I'm not sure the photo is even yet available to the general public on NASA's website — can anybody check?"
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I'm looking forward to seeing Russian drunks guzzling vodka in space on youtube. Maybe we can insert a clip of it in an upcoming sequel to Jackass.
We should have drinks in space, just like everywhere else. And why not other things? Smoking is a problem because of the high oxy atmosphere, but anything ingested - sure. Come on people! This has become a living environment. No reason to be puritanical about it.
how about bj's
Ok for me but not for the pilot.
I apologize now russia, for surely, after reading this article, we have dispatched with haste to the base, a delegation from our now infamous ministry of nanny state devottees, who will, as soon as possible, have you a bonafide ministry of the nanny state operating at peak efficiency....but whilst they are over there and got thier backs turned to us a bit, could you send us over some of those cool like ministry of health dudes and dudettes??...and vote "ya" on califs prop 19. peace out in '78 ya all.
"No alcoholic drinks will be consumed during the Armadillo Aerospace/Space Adventures’ suborbital spaceflights,"
Hey, thats their problem. Over here at starfleet, our policy is, put it on the rocks and light em if ya got em.....off duty of course.
Remember, less than 500.00 usd for a three day two night moon orbital, at that price, it has to be byob, no freebies from the lounge. Leave your chips in the casino please.
Russian aerospace technology is as awesome as their music and literature, and we can assume their engineers have a cognac on the ground whenever one of their reliable rockets takes off. Russians also look like "us", dress like us, and have the same sense of humor (when our PC police police are not present). It's time we make friends with Russia on all fronts. In today's world, we need to. Bottoms up!
I'm conflicted. First of all I have no problem with consuming alcoholic beverages in space, big deal, it's no better or worse than consuming them anywhere else and I, myself, like a couple of beers after work.
But....and here's the conflict...what if something happens after you've had a few. You are impaired. Will you be able to respond to an emergency effectively?
Maybe it should be mandatory to have a "designated pilot" who sips tea while the rest of the crew gets snockered.
Other than that, and it's a big reservation I admit, I don't have a problem with it.
Bottoms up!
My only objection to drinking in space: A 12 pack of beer weights about 4 kilograms. The cost of boosting it to orbit would be about $40,000. I would love to see an astronaut drinking a $3,500 PBR though!
Me: "Dude when I look at that satellite overhead I gotta wonder if it's the ISS"
Luke: " Ya dude astronauts are like... space campers"
I find it embarrassing that the uptight prudes in this country insist that our country formally present what they think it the right way to behave. It makes me feel like they represent some other country and not me. I think the truth is much better than the formal, Photoshopped, sterile, boring, crap. The individual choice of moderate alcohol consumption of alcohol would seem much closer to the real world than the US Marines in “Dress Blues”.
It is like your doctor or NASA always having an instant answer to any issue; after a while I tend to not believe them. The real world is a good place with individuallity and differences. Why do social conservatives pretend it is different and then insist that our entire country is as sterial and boring as they are???
There's no need to get drunk whether in space or on the ground. But I suppose astronauts should be allowed to tip one to celebrate once in a while. Like somebody's birthday, birth of a baby down on Earth, New Year's eve. Even up in space, we're still humans.
I think for $102,000 you'd be entitled to get wasted if you wanted to. But as for NASA, they're riding on tax payer funding, so I'd say staying sober is part of the job.
Why don't they send those guys up with "Synthahol"??? All the flavor, none of the bite!
On a more serious note, I see no problems with the Russian Cosmonauts sharing some stolichnaya with each other and with thirsty American Astronauts. As long as they have 1 or 2 drinks, off hours, no less than 8 hours prior to their work shift. If anything, it would make for good study to determine the effects of Alcohol on the human body in weightlessness.
Why stop at Cognac? There are many other therapeutic remedies that could improve the lives of astronauts and cosmonauts in space.
I had in mind something of the cultural freedom found in John Carpenter's first movie, "Dark Star".
Now that the "WAR ON DRUGS"has been called off by the US President, Barack Obama, let's see him walk the talk and reverse the harm that the paranoid United States government has done all over the world. And what better way to send a signal that drugs are now cool than to distribute drugs in space!
Let's get over the nightmare that world-wide drugs Prohibition and anti-drug propaganda and paranoia has inflicted upon all the nations of the world for the past 75 years, and show that "the land of liberty" is really repentant, (not just saying it), and is now on the side of freedom, not tyranny, and that Space Station "Freedom" is above and beyond the religious and fear-mongering social-control legislation that has been enacted against mind-expansion and soul-liberation, laws that, despite President Obama's brave declaration, still oppress us here on Earth. In doing so the United States, which is responsible for bringing this global-evil down upon us all, will be sending a signal to the whole world to bring down the wall. It is a first step in actually doing something, albeit, in itself of only symbolic value, but finally to be not just talking about doing something. As John Lennon said "WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT!".
Marijuana has many medicinal uses - just listen to the Bob Marley song "Legalize It" to hear marijuana's medical attributes listed ..."Lega-lize it/ And I will ad-ver-tise it", he sings (...imagine listening to that song, while stoned, in space!) ... while in herbal compendiums it has also been listed as a "cure for boredom" ...something to revitalize the soul's free expression and to invigorate the astronauts thought processes throughout those long months in space. So imagine how beneficial marijuana could be in the future for keeping astronauts involved and into what it's all about, during long interplanetary journeys.
And what about LSD? ...Imagine being in orbit, seeing the Earth below and the whole starry universe, unobscured by Earth's atmosphere, while on an acid-trip! I wonder what that would be like? Is this not something the whole world would be interested in seeing, and hearing, and even experiencing - if only vicariously ...astronauts and cosmonauts relating their experiences from space, while spaced, and even while walking in space? Wow!!!
Alan:
Another US Space First?
There were several press reports some years ago about rumors that astronauts may have had booze on some flights. And there are some tantalizingly cryptic messages in the old Apollo transcripts that one could read as possibly directing the astronauts to some sort of contraband on board.
On Apollo 13, Capcom asks the CDR if he'd opened the "food locker just aft of the LM data file?"
CDR :"Yes, it's been opened..."
Capcom: "..Just checking."
CDR"...It came at the right time."
No word on what "it" is...
And another curious report from Apollo 8: "There's some things in my pocket they don't know about."
None of this is a smoking gun of course, but there are several unusual conversations that could be construed as giving astronauts clues as to where contraband might be hidden. (Could also have any number of other meanings....)
Jay Barbree (NBC) probably knows the real story and hasn't ever said anything about it...
Guess what they say is true: What happens in space stays in space...
Russian to American:
"On the behalf of the people of Russia, I wish to welcome you as guests aboard Space Station 'Mir'. I hope you will enjoy your stay here.
" We are fortunate to have many ample supplies of refreshments on board, so I hope that you will allow my comrades to salute your arrival with some cognac ...(or whatever else that you might prefer that we may be able to supply from our stocks of liquor etcetera ...?) ...and join with me and my comrades in a toast to our respective countries ...And meanwhile, you will perhaps, entertain us, with the story of your long journey to Mir to join with us living together here at the Russian space station?"
American to Russian:
"Welcome to the ISS, Space Station 'Freedom'. Now, before we start, I'm required by NASA to provide you with a list of rules which you must obey - while working aboard the ISS, while departing it, and while working in space in proximity to the ISS. These rules are for your safety and the safety of others.
"NASA has asked me to bring certain specific rules to your attention, which you will find underlined in red. If you look down the list of rules, firstly to rule 1.1.7 you will see that alcohol is not permitted on the ISS ...And, then if you turn to page six, and scroll down the page to rule 2.1.9, you will see that it is, unfortunately, a requirement of entry to the ISS that you relinquish control of your space suit upon arrival, just so that it can be searched for illicit substances and contraband, including any alcohol that you may have smuggled on board. There are several other important health and safety requirements that your country may not have briefed you about before they sent you here, so to save time, NASA has highlighted the foremost of these ...And then, finally, we can quickly move onto security issues before getting you acquainted with the operational work-procedures and timetables that you will need to learn and familiarise yourselves with in order to get started ..."
... AND SO ON, AND SO ON, AND SO ON...!!!
Gotta love the Ruskies, If they are wasted and encounter alien life it will give the aliens a good idea what to expect on earth.
Under alien hospitality I hope they will bring their own.
Maybe vodka from space? Then it maybe would be to expansive for them to get drunk out of it...
www.rymdvodka.com