Russian official denies Soyuz astronaut drunk
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's space agency denied Saturday that an astronaut could have flown drunk aboard a Soyuz spacecraft from its Baikonur cosmodrome, reacting to allegations made by an independent US panel on astronaut health.
"We categorically deny the possibility that this could have happened at Baikonur," Igor Panarin, spokesman for the Russian Space Agency, Roskosmos, told the Associated Press. "In the days at Baikonur before the launch this is absolutely impossible. They are constantly watched by medics and psychiatrists."
Air Force Col. Richard Bachmann Jr., the panel chairman, said Friday that an astronaut suspected of having overindulged was cleared to fly on the space shuttle. Another astronaut in a similar condition, he said, was reported to have flown aboard a Soyuz spacecraft headed to the International Space Station.