BEING an astronaut on the space station just got riskier. Sensors that monitor air and water quality as well as radiation levels have been broken for a number of months. And systems that monitor the crew鈥檚 vital signs have been producing irregular data.
Yet NASA鈥檚 latest mission to the space station was approved despite the concerns of two of its medical experts about the 鈥渢he continued degradation鈥� of equipment, according to the minutes of a meeting at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The revelation comes just weeks after the Columbia Accident Investigation Board criticised NASA鈥檚 closed 鈥渟afety culture鈥� for contributing to the Columbia shuttle accident.
In September, two NASA medical experts refused to sign flight certificates authorising the mission. Nonetheless a three-man crew blasted off for the space station from Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on 18 October. One of the astronauts returned with the previous crew while the other two are scheduled to stay at the station for 200 days.
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Astronaut Ed Lu, who has just returned from a six-month stint on the space station says the safety concerns have been 鈥渙verblown鈥�.