High in the Sky

Did you know the Russians have an open bar on the International Space Station?

Two NASA astronauts made guest appearances on the Emeril Live show last week and chatted with celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse about the inconveniences of dining in zero gravity. Emeril, it turns out, was invited by NASA to cook a meal for the crew of the International Space Station and he was demonstrating the recipes (Mardi Gras Jambalaya and Kicked-Up Bacon Cheese Mashed Potatoes) for his TV audience.

Emeril said he learned a lot about NASA's rules and regulations for space food, including the agency's total ban on alcohol. (Rum-soaked raisins in the rice pudding didn't make the cut.)

That's when astronauts Cady Coleman and Ed Liu gave the audience the old wink-wink-nudge-nudge and said of the ban on alcohol, "That's the official policy." The Americans, they said, do not bring alcohol into space.

"But the Russians," Emeril began.

He was interrupted by cheers and applause from the studio audience, joined enthusiastically by former space station resident Ed Liu.

Hey, why not?

America Wants to Know has previously written [see "Space Station Zero"] that the space station is nothing but an excuse for big federal contracts that U.S. lawmakers hand out in exchange for big campaign contributions. You don't need the Hubble telescope to see that the whole manned space program has degenerated into an elaborate public relations ploy to fool the taxpayers into thinking their money is going into exciting, futuristic, space-exploring, mind-expanding research, when in fact it's going in a circle around the earth, again and again and again, accomplishing nothing.

The astronauts take questions from grade-schoolers and give interviews to talk show hosts and stand in front of cameras while millions of people watch their hair float sideways. They perform like actors. They might as well drink like them.

Speaking of performances, you should have seen astronaut Cady Coleman, a woman who has a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from MIT and a doctorate in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts, talking like a Valley girl and describing her work deploying the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 1999 as "very cool." Speaking as if she were addressing a class of fourth-graders, she described what it was like to do science experiments with globs of liquids in zero gravity. "Very cool," she said again.

Well, that's what matters. You can't expect taxpayers to stand still for anything nerdy. Unfortunately, Cady's cool experiments are a thing of the past now that NASA is planning to drop all science research on the International Space Station in order to save money.

But don't worry, the space station still has a purpose. It's a working Bed and Breakfast Inn for tourists who pay the Russian government to fly them up there for a visit. The Russians charge twenty million dollars for a trip to the space station that U.S. taxpayers shelled out a hundred billion dollars to build.

No wonder they're opening champagne.



Copyright 2006

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