Cocaine discovery prompts investigation by NASA

[Rhiannon12866]

Source: Los Angeles Times

About 200 shuttle workers are tested after drug residue is found at the Florida base.

Reporting from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. - The people who work on the space shuttle don't fly on the orbiters they maintain -- but it appears at least one of them may have been getting high.

A shuttle worker employed by United Space Alliance found a plastic bag with a white powder residue -- later confirmed to be cocaine -- in a shuttle processing hangar at Kennedy Space Center last week.

The worker gave it to NASA security, and about 200 workers were given drug tests.

There was no indication that any of the workers were impaired, NASA said.

Space center spokeswoman Lisa Malone said the substance was found on the floor outside two bathrooms and a janitor's closet, in an area where workers have to swipe their identification cards, so NASA knows who was in Orbital Processing Facility 3.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-nasa-cocaine17-2010jan17,0,2355936.story

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. I thought this might have been different

and maybe NASA discovered that Mars was made of cocaine.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. Looking again at the title, I can see how you thought that...

Sorry if you were disappointed... :evilgrin:

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Testng new rocket fuel?

:silly:

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Maybe that's why space missions have become prohibitively expensive...

:wow::silly:

[Peace Patriot]

3. This is a news article? nt

[Regret My New Name]

6. I was wondering the same thing...

[Rhiannon12866]

11. Well, I found it under news...

And this investigation could well affect the planned mission. It doesn't seem to take much, these days... :-(

[flyingfysh]

4. so that's how they get the shuttles high?

And we thought they had been doing it with rockets.

[mac56]

5. Spaced out, man.

:rofl:

[truthisfreedom]

7. Probably got stuck to someone's shoe.

[BlueIris]

9. That subheadline is weird--"drug *residue*"? It was a bag of coke.

:shrug:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Sounds like it was a bag that formerly contained coke

Empty, and unwisely discarded. It doesn't sound like a fat bag full of coke.

Anyway, certainly enough to set off the "zero-tolerance" alarmists, making their heads explode.

:party:

[SomeGuyInEagan]

13. Wow ... that lead sentence is awkward.

It reminds me of my grandfather trying to make drug jokes back in the early '70s (when he was in his 70s). Is anybody editing at the L.A. Times these days?

[Rhiannon12866]

14. Reply #1 made me read that again, and you're both right...

He thought that it could mean that they found cocaine on Mars... :silly:

[DBoon]

15. I think we can expect this in any high performance job now

You push people really hard, they will use drugs to meet your expectations.

In any intense, competitive business, professionals are using stimulants like athletes use steroids.

[Rhiannon12866]

16. A very valid point...

When I worked in a stressful, deadline business, it seemed like half of the people I knew about were on prescription drugs, either anti-depressants or sedatives... :-(

[47of74]

17. We're traveling faster than man has ever traveled before...

...Oh, WOW!!!