Drinking and driving in a spaceship is probably not as cool as it sounds.

July 27th 2007 – A panel set up by the American National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has discovered that at least two astronauts, on two separate missions, were inebriated upon takeoff. They were cleared to fly, even though they broke the 12 hour pre-flight sobriety rule. The panel report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/27_07_07_nasa.pdf) recommends much more strict and frequent physical, psychological and psychiatric testing for astronauts with an approaching flight. Furthermore, the panel wisely recommends that NASA reviews if said testing and data collection is accomplished following established guidelines and procedures. To summarize it all, the panel is telling NASA that they screwed up and that it has no idea what new regulations to implement to avoid future problems.

I certainly agree that, to fly a billion dollar spacecraft out of our atmosphere and into the vacuum of space, one must be at the apex of his physical and mental efficiency. On the human side, I can’t condemn these pilots too much; they were ABOUT TO FLY A BILLION-DOLLAR SPACECRAFT OUT OF OUR ATMOSPHERE AND INTO THE VACUUM OF SPACE! The levels of fear, stress, denial and disbelief probably give a secondary use to the adult diapers they were wearing.

Perhaps this is not an excuse to cool down nerves with some Bourbon, but surely, the media have blown this story out of proportion. I accuse them of not taking two crucial facts into account. Firstly, these astronauts were declared fit to pilot the darn thing an hour before takeoff. I trust that the inspectors clearing them were not also drinking and that they knew what they were doing. This supposition, in turn, suggests that these pilots were not staggering about and vomiting in their helmets as they climbed the ladder to the hatch. I question the amount of alcohol that the media equate to ‘being drunk’. Secondly, the media uses the term pilot as it applies to a car or bicycle driver. This second faulty supposition denies the existence of a multitude of on-ground specialists and millions of dollars worth of automated subroutines operating the craft. Much like an airline pilot, the astronaut pilot’s primary function is to supervise the smooth unfolding of the operation and to maintain constant vigilance, should anything fail. The correct analogy would be the passenger in a car, not the driver; should the driver experience a heart attack, fatigue or explosive decompression, the passenger can jump into action to remedy the situation and return the vehicle to a safe location. My point is that the spacecraft, which these accused men piloted, did not swerve upon take-off and hit a tree as in cartoons.

Alcohol as a quick method of tension-relief has been historically present since the dawn of sedentary man, 10000 years ago. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are packed with references to heavy drinking the night (or even the meal) before an attack on the walled city of Troy. No one got to sleep in because of a hangover; they had to go risk their lives for a pointless personal endeavour (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war). Closer to our time period, rum (or grog) was the chosen nectar on circumnavigational voyages of the 16th and 17th centuries. It kept longer than water and provided a brief respite for the sailors who lost captain Magellan in the Philippines, halfway through their quest; for massive amounts of colonists to the new world, tortured by scurvy; and for Davis, Cabot and Frobisher’s men, frostbitten by a fruitless endeavour to fin a northwest passage through the Canadian north. Could they have persevered and survived through these harsh times without it? Of course! Can you dig a hole with your hands even if you have a shovel handy? Sure. As my dad always said ‘Work hard, party hard’.

I am not excusing the astronauts, I am understanding them. I would personally be fired for showing up inebriated at my place of work so my understanding has its limits. You have to work hard BEFORE you party hard.

(Pictured: Dionysos, god of wine and festivities, tempting mortals with the substance - Space shuttle Columbia launching in April 1981)

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If I lock myself in here and close my eyes, nothing can hurt me.

July 9th, 2007 – German Interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble has proposed a radical plan to render anti-terrorism laws stricter for his nation. Among other measures, Schäuble proposed the phone-tapping and computer monitoring of suspected terrorists. This implies a lack of warrant or accountability. Officers and offices would be free to create their own criteria for what a suspect should be. Furthermore, the minister (whom hails from the Christian Democratic Union) suggests a clear law that would allow certain established terrorists to be assassinated without trial. Wolfgang gives the example of Osama bin Laden but such a law could easily lead people to take justice into their own hands against an enemy, or someone that looked like him, ‘it was dark, I thought his cane was a shotgun, I swear he had a beard…’ with obviously disastrous consequences.

This news story is not the easiest to find due to the controversy it is reeking on the German administration. Among others, the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has denounced these declarations as extreme and tactless. I can actually see both sides of the issue. Schäuble often quotes the United-States patriot act that allows the same measures that he is proposing; he claims to want to take every possible precaution to prevent a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, doing so in this manner would encroach on the very foundations of contemporary democracy. To spy on, detain or assassinate a person without trial or universal procedure contradicts the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle and has the potential for unlimited abuse. In parallel, we mustn’t forget the code of Hammurabi in c. 1800 BC and the laws of Solon in Greece (c. 610 BC); these were breakthroughs for humanity. For the first time, law was universal and could not be modified by the whims of administrators or the bribes of offenders. The United-States passed such a law after a traumatic and horrifying event in 2001, the German parliament (Bundestag) has gone through no such tragedy and thus are appalled and shaken at the prospect of losing certain liberties in the name of anti-terrorism.

Such a measure of ‘shoot on site without punishment’ was once implemented to weed out the enemies of the state. In ancient Rome, amidst a bevy of civil wars, power struggles and international aggression, the Senate would allow or even mandate certain Senatus Consultum Ultimum. Being the most important and official decree of this institution, it would allow the murder of a public enemy without trial or without consequences for the assassin. The statute of ‘public enemy’ was determined by VERY biased and influenced people who, in no way, held justice as the highest value to protect. In the 120s BC, two such decrees allowed the murders of the Gracchi brothers. They were enemies of the state because of several reforms the proposed: redistribution of wealth and land, sharing of power between rich patricians and the working classes, etc. At the worst part of the civil wars and at the terminal point of the Roman Republic, the Senate passed a Senatus Consultum Ultimum on Caesar’s head. Following this, Caesar took Rome, chased out the senate, formed a new one and got them to reverse the decree. These warranted assassinations usually worked but constantly and progressively lead the way to more drastic and tyrannical laws.

Such drastic and anti-democratic laws, in the present as in the past, by a government that is inherently not objective leads to abuse, unequal application of justice and general weakening of the democratic civilisation we have become. I applaud the complete rejection of Schäuble’s ideas and encourage him to find another drastic way to deal with terrorist potential without breaking constitutional and democratic essentials.

(Pictured: The Roman Senate at the time of Cicero - c. 60 BC - Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, a detention centre for untried terrorist suspects)

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Free the hostages, it's a good thing.

July 4th – BBC reporter Alan Johnston was released from a rebel clan of the Gaza strip in Palestine. After 114 days being held hostage by the “terrorist” faction, I was very pleasantly surprised by his release. My pessimistic nature pushed me to believe that he would not only be never released but was also probably dead. Johnston was not made an example of. With the help of the HAMAS political party, his release was secured with his person quite intact although with a few emotional scars. The BBC news service is now milking the man for all he is worth with stories of “Johnston describes relief”, “Family never lost hope”, “release reactions in quotes”… I understand that people do need these stories because this was a very personal crisis; a civilian was made hostage in a conflict that does not concern his nation. I simply hope that Mr. Johnston will be able to make a deeper meaning emerge from his ordeal.

In 168 BC a Greek (Achaean) man called Polybius was taken, along with 999 others, as a hostage to the Roman Empire. This was a condition to the roman conquest of the Achaean League in Greece, following the rebellion of the latter. In Ancient times, taking hostages guaranteed that if a conquered province rebelled once again, the captured civilians would be slaughtered; a logical and cunning form of terrorism for sure. During his 17 years of captivity, Polybius adopted and studied Roman culture and history. He subsequently wrote a comprehensive history of the Roman civilisation, keeping in mind he was Greek and a prisoner. Today, it is not only one of the rarely conserved histories from Antiquity but it is also one of the first histories of an event, viewed by the enemy or defeated side of a conflict.

Another notable account of an event by an “enemy” is Amin Maalouf’s “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” in 1986. Such accounts can seldom be corroborated through lack of comparative works but they provide an indispensable bias in the description of an event.

My point is that Alan Johnston’s unfortunate detention and fortunate release may provide us with a new point of view on the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been raging since 1948. Mr. Johnston has spent time with the enemy and when he writes his account of the events he lived through, we will have a novel perception from the other side. A hopefully subjective account yet free of propaganda, ultranationalism and prejudice, as can be the case with official Israeli or Palestinian accounts.

Welcome home Mr. Johnston.

(Pictured: Ancient Greece with the Achaeans at the top of the Peloponnesian peninsula - Alan Johnston's release)

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