NASA Mounts Weed-Inspired Witch Hunt at SpaceX and Boeing
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NASA concerned about culture of “inappropriateness” at SpaceX, Ars Technica
“In addition to spurring problems for the car company Tesla, Elon Musk’s puff of marijuana in September will also have consequences for SpaceX. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that NASA will conduct a “safety review” of both of its commercial crew companies, SpaceX and Boeing. The review was prompted, sources told the paper, because of recent behavior by Musk, including smoking marijuana on a podcast. According to William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s chief human spaceflight official, the review will be “pretty invasive” and involve interviews with hundreds of employees at various levels of the companies, across multiple worksites. The review will begin next year, and interviews will examine “everything and anything that could impact safety,” Gerstenmaier told the Post.”
NASA to launch safety review of SpaceX and Boeing after video of Elon Musk smoking pot rankled agency leaders, Washington Post
“The review was prompted by the recent behavior of SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk, according to three officials with knowledge of the probe, after he took a hit of marijuana and sipped whiskey on a podcast streamed on the Internet. That rankled some at NASA’s highest levels and prompted the agency to take a close look at the culture of the companies, the people said.”
Keith’s note: Its good that NASA wants everyone in the human spaceflight family to be safe and productive. Alas, NASA has run out of things to blame its own internal failures on so they go after two external partners to see if there is anything they can dig up. The net result will probably be a delay to Boeing and SpaceX launches which will make SLS delays look less bad, I guess. Imagine what a similar internal scrutiny of NASA SLS/Orion employees would reveal. Will NASA and SLS/Orion staff at equivalent levels be queried about their on-the-job and off-time habits? It is rather ironic that NASA’s human spaceflight program is this uptight about a podcast (one that includes mention of behavior that is legal in California) when the entire NASA senior management has been drinking the Koolaid for decades (“Don’t worry – be happy”).
SpaceX can reuse rockets and learned how to do so at a fraction of what it would have taken NASA to do so – if they even knew how, that is. NASA has no rockets to reuse and they spent a billion dollars to make reusable shuttle engines disposable. SpaceX needs 7 launches before people can fly. But NASA will launch crews on their second SLS flight and they put crews back on Soyuz months after a booster malfunctioned.
Who cares what SpaceX or Boeing may be smoking. I want to know what NASA has been smoking.
An interesting point, and one I didn’t think of myself. During that interview, weren’t Mr. Musk and his host drinking whisky? Somehow that doesn’t get mentioned, while one puff on a joint is headline news. If the later prompts a workplace safety investigation (even though the interview wasn’t in the workplace…) why not the former?
Edit: Just to make my opinion clear, that should have been, “Since the former did _not_ prompt a safety investigation, why should the later?”
Maybe because that would raise uncomfortable questions about the Russian space culture? Questions best left not asked given our dependence on them because NASA keeps finding excuses to delay SpaceX and Dragon2…
https://www.nbcnews.com/sci…
Alcohol in space? Da!
by Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Oct 14 2010, 4:50 pm ET
In reference to Mir…
“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.”
Maybe because Whiskey isn’t covered by the Drug Free Workplace Act?
https://federalnewsnetwork….
Not to mention the person who puffed on the joint is not engineering staff and most likely has never lifted a wrench to touch a single part of the vehicle !
In any industrial safety culture, the workers look to management example to decide which safety rules are serious and which ones are lip service. My understanding is is that those rules are based on guidelines handed down from OSHA and Workman’s comp insurance risk data, which all bow eventually to things at the Fed level.
…and California state and local government agencies as a rule tend to be regulation heavy.
My guess…it is legal in California, but if you have a job even remotely similar to that of human spaceflight rocket builder, and you smoke pot, you could find yourself unemployed. If you work for SpaceX, then you work more than 5 days a week. If you smoke pot in the evening you will test positive in the morning.
Conclusion: This shot at SpaceX safety culture and reputation has potential to stick, but they probably have rules in place already, so it’ll take longer for a slow government agency like NASA to chase down enforcement history than it’ll take until first human launch on a Dragon…then it won’t matter.
California employers can prohibit off-duty use of marijuana on the basis of the federal prohibition, which renders it illegal activity, although it is not currently enforced. However for most positions employee drug testing can be done only at the time of employment and if reasonable suspicion exists. Obviously an employee who reported for work intoxicated might be subject to testing for both alcohol and marijuana, but if job performance is unaffected this would be difficult to justify. The following is from the Cal Law blog:
“Employers generally may only drug test applicants for employment (after a conditional offer has been made). Post-employment drug-testing generally is limited to reasonable suspicion testing. Random drug testing of current employees is, for the most part, prohibited. There are exceptions for certain safety-sensitive positions and positions covered by special laws and regulations that require more frequent drug testing and/or drug testing based on certain circumstances (e.g. post-accident testing). “
Smoking a joint is illegal under federal law. It’s also one of the drugs tested for in a standard drug screen, required for working on most government contracts.
Its also legal in California.
Legal at the state level, but not at the federal level. And they make the rules on contracts.
That is not correct. My current employer has numerous government contracts _and_ a policy against requiring drug tests. I’m not sure about the legal details, but they have some other way of satisfying the drug free workplace requirements.
In any case, don’t we have a Supreme Court Justice who admitted smoking pot in college? That didn’t seem to be a disqualification for an important job.
I think you’re referring to a scotus appointee who had to drop out because he admitted to the use of pot in college.
Edit: Ginsburg
The state laws that I’ve read which allow the use of pot still do not prohibit a business from disallowing it in a drug screening…and it is somewhat persistent in the system.
latter. Two t’s. Later is…well, after now.
WHISKEY MADNESS!!!!
This seems like a Giant waste of time !!
Time,yes. Time for the 4th most powerful man in the US government, who has his hands on NASA’s throat, to cool down, … by delaying Commercial Crew yet again.
Unbelievable. This is strictly to keep SpaceX from flying and cover Boeing and SLS delays. Corruption, pure and simple.
Shelby. Bet on it.
Boeing is going through the same review. How does this help them?
While it does not help Shelby’s vassal, Boeing SS&D, it *does* placate Shelby, who reportedly had “gone thermonuclear”, over NASA Associate Administrator Jurczyck’s remark, that once Super Heavy/Starship, and New Glenn, and perhaps New Armstrong, were established operationally, NASA could walk away from SLS.
Well, about one more month and Shelby no longer matters.
In the House Appropriations Committee, that would be correct. Since Senator Shelby is Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he will remain in power until 2022, when his current term expires at the age of 85. Remembering how long Kleagle Byrd lasted, however, even that isn’t a mandatory retirement for him.
The good Mr. Shelby is a GOP Senator, and the GOP retained control of the Senate. So unless Mr. S who is currently chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee, is silly enough to step down from handing out the cash, he’s still one of the most powerful Senators in the place and will continue to be so. (Being a former Chairman of the Senate Rules committee doesn’t hurt his power base either.) And if the GOP were to lose control he’ll simply do what her did the last time the chamber changed hands and switch back to the new ruling side (He started as a Democrat after all) to insure his seniority in the chamber continues to protect his states interests.
My mistake. I got him mixed up with a Reputation in Texas who lost his seat.
Shelby will still be chair of Senate Appropriations in 2019. Alas.
Because they are old space and will be “compliant” already.
You want to talk inappropriateness, Jim? How about a culture that’s so obsessed with safety on the large scale that it receives tens of billions of dollars and can’t manage to launch a rat beyond LEO for decades (and counting)? How about a culture that fails to listen to its own engineers, leading to the deaths of not one, but two shuttle crews?
THAT’s inappropriate, Jim.
Or, walk through any airport to witness fear and odsession ( And with compromised personal privacy as a side effect: “But if we catch ONE bad guy is worth I! I got nuttin’ ta hide!”)
Awesome channeling of Bones… To add some: “This just sticks in my craw, and I can’t spit it out!”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media…
It’s not like someone can toke up, grab a joystick, and drive a rover off a cliff. Maybe NASA upper management should consider hitting the pakalolo, it might help them think outside the box.
This is just silly. To think that Elon’s performance at work is affected by his off-hour activities is silly, pure and simple. This has been recognized by Canada, potentially Mexico, and more than half of the states in the US.
The fact that he doesn’t have off hours really is probably of more concern !
Uñfortunately, Keith I think you have characterized NASAs human space flight incapacitatioñ and inability to perform all too accurately. We have seen it for decades and we keep waiting for some improvement and change and yet nothing changes. We see Administrators come and go, and no change. It is very unfortunate what NASA HSF has become.
I expect that once the Starliner is operational and going to the Moon you will see numerous astronauts resigning from NASA to go work for a firm actually exploring space. It will probably be occuring in other parts of the HSF programs, but it will be most visible with the astronauts.
I think NASA has already seen much of this exodus. At the time of the last Shuttle there were about 145 astronauts. Now I think there are about 40. And at the rate of one or two US astronauts going to orbit each year, they are not getting rides too quickly.
You know I see NASA Human Spaceflight’s non-accomplishment on a daily basis as I go into work and sit at my desk, 8 hour day after 8 hour day, week after week, month after month with no actual products, no real work to do. I feel like once we were accomplishing great things and it did not seem like a job at all, but for years we literally have been producing nothing.
The NASA FAR Supplement has language (Subpart 1823.5—Drug-Free Workplace and contract clause 1852.223-74 Drug-and alcohol-free workforce) which states: “As a minimum, the program shall provide for preemployment, reasonable suspicion, random, post-accident, and periodic recurring (follow-up) testing of contractor employees in sensitive positions for use, in violation of applicable law or Federal regulation, of alcohol or a controlled substance.“
Do we know what SpaceX does to satisfy this?
When I worked at SpX starting in 2015, there was no pre-hire drug testing or even questioning about it. There were stories about employees using after hours and sometimes on the job to take the edge off as long as it didn’t impact your work quality. As long as you did not use heavy equipment, drug use was treated more like a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. These employees were in the minority of the workforce and heavy stuff like heroine, etc. was not allowed.
For the record, I hold nothing against SpX and left of my own accord because I didn’t fit with the culture and I’m just stating what I saw when I worked there. I already received enough hate from the Reddit crowd today.
Interesting. The FAR Supplement does give definitions for “sensitive positions”, but it is open to some interpretation.
NASA is also a “Drug-Free Workplace”, but that does not mean that everyone is tested. Only those in a “Testing Designated Position” are. Per NSSC: Approximately 6,000 positions, or one-third of NASA’s total civil service workforce, have been identified as TDPs and are subject to random drug testing. Approximately 1,500 employees, or 25% of the total TDP population, will be randomly tested for illegal drug use annually.
As more states legalize recreational marijuana while the feds maintain their policies, we are going to see an increasing number of conflicts based on the disparity between alcohol and drug testing, where the former tests for intoxication and the latter tests for use.
Have you called their HR to ask?
Ok, I’ve never used any recreational drug, but have had the occasional alcoholic drink. Given the two, I’d be more concerned about somebody drinking on the job rather than the recreational toke.
We live in the real world, and people will do things they aren’t supposed to. We have docs, pilots(I’m a former pilot), cops, etc., who drink to excess, then spend the first few minutes of a shift sucking oxygen to burn off the alcohol. Does it happen a lot? no, but it does happen. Unless we’re going to blood test EVERYBODY daily for drugs and alcohol, we have to accept that people will exercise reasonable judgement and not be blasted when doing critical work.
Any process or procedures applied to Spacex MUST be applied to NASA personnel as well, or it’s just bashing the new guys on the block.
NASA is a culture of stability. The people in this culture look at SpaceX and they see a company run by someone who does interviews while smoking marijuana, nearly getting himself in big trouble with the SEC (granted that was concerning a separate company), and constantly changing the company’s next-generation launch platform. I can kind of see where NASA is coming from: remember that “mini BFR” we talked about with dozens of messages just a couple of weeks ago? Never mind, it has been cancelled.
“NASA is a culture of stability.”
So are many hold-overs from pre-industrial society. They are mostly “stable” because it is against their funder’s interests to embrace rapid change.
“When a society moves from allocating resources by custom and tradition (moderns read here, by politics) to allocating resources by markets, they may be said to have undergone an industrial revolution” Arnold Toynbee-1884
NASA culture cannot be anything *but* “stable”, or Congress will cease funding them. Thus, NASA remains pre-industrial, in spite of high technology.
It’s funny how so many on here who crucify NASA’s risk posture as being too risk averse, will be the same ones who will crucify NASA’s risk posture as being too lax when a mishap happens.
What has NASA been smoking Keith? It’s called CONGRESS.
All of you who, for lack of better words, hold Elon up as the great savior of spaceflight need to remember that Elon, for better or worse, is not subject to the whims and machinations of Congress. It isnt like SpaceX has all of the smart engineers, and I get really tired of folks on here who will brand all of NASA as worthless. Just think of what NASA engineers would have accomplished without the shackles of politics or changes in direction and mission every time somebody new gets in the White House. Hell, LFBB, CAU, I can think of a bunch of cool and innovative stuff that have been worked on, only to get killed by changing priorities in DC.
Enough disparaging the Agency. Direct your fire at the real problem: Congress.
So you really think a hunt for Drugs in the work place is warranted because Elon had a single puff on a joint ?? I wonder where is the investigation into far right bullies in the work place given who the Commander and Chief is !
Doing whatever will keep NASA’s budget getting passed is warranted. This is one of the more minor things that have been done to commercial Crew, to do that.
That wasn’t my point. And, FWIW, I was an unashamed weed smoker in college, right up until I got my first job offer.
Funny how Congress wasn’t the problem for the old NASA. Maybe that was because the staffers at NASA then knew how to work with the staffers in Congress to get things done. So ultimately the blame does come back to NASA for failing to make its case to Congress, and failing to provide a consistent vision that will survive changes in Administration. .
So there is discussion of early if not immediate retirement of SLS because companies like SpaceX can provide the necessary services. Now there is an investigation of SpaceX. Is this just some form of due diligence to ratify the retirement of SLS ?
This is Sen Richard Shelby of Alabama going thermal at the sheer thought that SLS-based pork for his state could be cancelled in favor of Super Heavy/Starship in particular, but also New Glenn/Armstrong. The sheer thought turns the old fart inside out.
Doubling down on his panic is todays appearance of FCC paperwork for Starship flight tests at Boca Chica.
You have to wonder how much SpaceX is regretting the contract terms they agreed to for Commercial Crew. Every incident like this just makes it seem more like a mistake. People think the Air Force rejected BFR; I’m betting SpaceX didn’t bid.
Bingo! He learned well his lesson on Commercial Crew. Blue Origin and Bigelow aerospace also know that getting entangled with NASA is a pathway to failure. And I suspect the National Space Council does as well, noting how their top prority is getting better regulations into place at the Department of Commerce for commercial ventures like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Indeed, the NSC really hasn’t spent much time on NASA if you think about it.
I had two orthogonal thoughts reading this:
What is the chance NASA will launch a random testing protocol at any of the NASA Centers or other NASA partners (say, those in California or Colorado)?
I’m also rather curious of the probability this is actually as a response to Roscosmos to say “Hey, we’re going to get tough on our people, too,” after they somehow accidentally drilled a hole in a Soyuz module and ejected a booster in the wrong direction.
They already do random drug and alcohol screenings, at least here at Kennedy. I can’t imagine them not doing it at other centers.
There are still a group of connected employees at NASA who are quietly supporting the fantasy in Congress and Boeing that has the SLS and Orion supporting the ISS.
They look forward to the double income of making a government pension while working a cushy job for Boeing. They know who they are and I hope they’re listening. There is no credible sequence of events at this point that leads to SLS/Orion being available for ISS flights…so I say to them, pttttttttttttttttttth!
I also say to them…stop, just stop. You’re embarrassing yourselves.
Go ahead. Interview every every SpaceX and Boeing employee. It won’t speed up the production of Orion or SLS. For that matter, it won’t speed up CST-100 either. It won’t slowdown the BFR “Starship”…which will likely take people to the Moon while SLS/Orion still languish on the ground. It won’t stop Falcon Heavy from launching private and foreign government robotic missions out into Solar System, including Mars, either…also while NASA still pays people to keep SLS/Orion from flying.
Perhaps if a few folks at NASA and Boeing had sat down and toked away they would have come up with a more creative solution than throwing away perfectly good RS-25s after only a few minutes of use…
Now comes news that SX is scheduling the first Crew Dragon for January (without a crew; manned flights penciled for July). Assuming the January date holds, will adding another 60 days to the elapsed time since Mr. Musk’s bone-headed toke be sufficient to wash the image from American minds?
I doubt the image resulted in more than a passing amusement to anyone who happened to see it, a universe likely quite small indeed.
Still, the NASA of 2018 and the NASA of 1968 have a lot in common: a squeaky-clean appearance being at the top of the list. NASA obviously feels that this reputation is worthy of protection (and never mind that the ‘protection’ is likely to result in wider dissemination).
In the main this is a correct course of action, although more would be achieved with a slightly less heavy hand.
Read today that the unpiloted Crewed Dragon is scheduled for Jan. 7, 2019.
https://spaceflightnow.com/…
Given what Musk has done with SpaceX so far, perhaps NASA should go smoke a joint.
This is pure Richard Shelby, Senior Senator from Alabama, 84 years old. He has been opposed to Commercial Space from the outset. He has tremendous power, being the Chair of the Senate Appropriations
Committee.
From Wikipedia: “Shelby has supported development of the Space Launch System (SLS)… When President Obama decided to cancel Constellation, the Bush-era NASA program that was to provide the U.S.’s next manned rocket and instead give NASA a new $6 billion to ramp up a commercial space industry while NASA studies deep-space missions, Shelby ridiculed the plan as a “faith-based initiative”. “
I think he saw the podcast of Elon Musk smoking a joint as his wedge to get some more traction to sow doubts about the commercial viability of space transport, and this is how it has developed.
I’d still prefer to fly in Dragon 2 v. Soyuz. I think SpaceX has a healthier safety and quality culture than the state owned mess that is Roscomos. What’s the status of the hole-in-the-Soyuz investigation?
As with the rumors about General Grant’s drinking, to which President Lincoln’s supposed to have replied with a question: “Why sort of whiskey does he drink? I’d like to send a barrel to all of my generals,” if people involved in building the SpaceX launch vehicles that could produce so many reusable boosters and land them successfully are using drugs, maybe NASA ought to supply them to all its contractors.
Seriously, the safety culture at any NASA spaceflight hardware fabricator has to be pretty strict — including our “partners” the Russians, who may have an issue with someone drilling unwanted holes in Soyuz capsules , but NASA needs to look at what it’s doing as well. The entire SLS system, from design to funding to architecture to software testing appears to be out of touch with reality. Congress (or maybe one Senator) bears a good deal of the blame, but NASA is clearly at fault, too.
“Will NASA and SLS/Orion staff at equivalent levels be queried about their on-the-job and off-time habits?”
Don’t know about all levels, but NASA folks I know (contractors and civil servants) had to go through a background check when they hired, and are being required to go through that again. That involves answering questions about drug use as well as personal finances, etc. It’s not an in-person interview (although it can lead to one), but they are queried.
Prospective employees can be queried on illegal drug use. In Florida medical marijuana is widely available with certification by a physician. In California it is legal. If the drug is legal the employer would in most cases have to show it interferes with job performance. A urine drug screen positive for THC is not necessarily evidence of interference with job performance.
As I recall Musk verified that he was in a legal state before he took a puff. Of course despite being California’s largest cash crop, marijuana is still illegal under federal law, which prevails on federal reservations, so it is not possible to legally launch the evil weed from the US. On a spacecraft under federal registration it would also be illegal, but if flying under state registration is ever permitted, state law would prevail. Unlike alcohol, current urine drug tests don’t assess impairment by THC since it remains detectable in urine for weeks, and a reliable field sobriety test would be more relevant. From the point of view of industrial safety (as though this were the actual motivation for the probe) a wide range of legal prescribed and OTC medications from opiates to antihistamines have as much or more impact on job performance than THC.
I do suspect that Sen. Shelby could be behind this. But until I know for certain, it’s just palace intrigue. If it is a witch hunt (Most likely), shouldn’t Robert Mueller take it over? The President says he’s good at witch hunts. (joking – don’t beat me up on this).
I re-read the charter for NACA and later NASA.
Nowhere in those founding documents does it say anything about NASA’s role as Future Interplanetary Morality Police. (FIMP )
So I suspect it is being done ( heavyhandedly on SpaceX and a feather touch on Boeing ) to impede SpaceX’s advantage in being first to orbit with a crew ship. In other words, politics. How inappropriate. We need both those capsules in orbit sooner, not later, to diminish the Russia Factor . I am not sure where hapless Orion fits in, but this display of Puritan dogma serves no one.