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’s vital signs have been producing irregular data.
Yet NASA’s latest mission to the space station was approved despite the concerns of two of its medical experts about the “the continued degradation” 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’s closed “safety culture” for contributing to the Columbia shuttle accident.…
