Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Space -- NOT

If Britney Spears wants some privacy, I have a suggestion for her: get NASA to fly her to the space station.

The space agency so vehemently protects the privacy of astronauts that even if they have to postpone a spacewalk, which costs something like a bazillion dollars a minute, because someone is sick, they won’t talk about it.

Even if the spacewalker, who has been training for more than a year, is sidelined, and a backup has to take his place, they won’t talk about it.

And even if the mission then has to be extended to make up for the extra day, they won’t talk about it.

In fact, those loyal folks at NASA will sit at a podium, look you straight in the eye and tell you that the medical situation has no impact to the mission.

In a strained press conference with reporters at the Johnson Space Center, John Shannon, the co-chairman of NASA’s mission management team, went on the defensive about the changes in the flight plan, saying only that a crew “medical issue” was behind the decision to delay installation of Europe’s Columbus laboratory a day.

The module was launched aboard space shuttle Atlantis on Thursday and was scheduled to be attached to the station during a spacewalk Sunday.

The shuttle arrived at the station Saturday afternoon.

During the rendezvous -- a very busy and tense time aboard the shuttle -- the crew called Mission Control to arrange for a private medical conference.

“It was a little bit of a surprise to us,” Shannon said.

A couple of hours later, NASA told the crew on its publicly distributed television broadcast that the spacewalk to install the module will be delayed to Monday and that astronaut Stan Love will take the place of Hans Schlegel, a 56-year old European Space Agency flier who was returning to space after a 15-year hiatus.

Shannon refused to even confirm it was Schlegel who was ill, although a European Space Agency representative did shortly after the briefing ended.

Here are other questions Shannon declined to answer:

*Was the medical condition present prior to launch?
*Is it contagious?
*Did it involve more than one person?

“You guys can fish all day, but I won’t bite,” he told us.

In what I think he would consider going out on a limb, Shannon did tell us the situation wasn’t life threatening.

But at least he didn’t try to pass it off as a matter of national security.

Comments

[Sean]

Is there a point to your ranting? If so, I can't make out what it is.

[Haha]

Sean, of course there's a point.
NASA is obligated to share its crew medical concerns if they impact the objectives of a mission. Apparently NASA doesn't consider a delayed spacewalk, a major change of crew member duties, nor a mission extension an impact.
Good logic, right? NOT!

[Sean]

Putting aside the possibility that they might be legally prohibited from disclosing a crew medical condition,

Why do you think they are obliged to share with you? Because you're a taxpayer? If your mailman is sick and you don't get your mail until tomorrow, is the post office obliged to tell you exactly what the condition of your mailman is?

[birdwatch]

I certainly respect and applaud NASA for not turning the space program into the type of pithy drama that commonly passes for news and I think I can speak for the press corps that we certainly don't expect or want to know the details of Mr. Schlegel's condition. However, sometimes the omission of information leads to false conclusions as directly as false information and that was the situation yesterday. With only seven people aboard the shuttle and one of them involved in a spacewalk which was then given to someone else, the facts supersede whatever it is NASA was trying to accomplish by standing behind the fence of medical privacy.

On another note, since the matter affected a European astronaut, it should have been up to ESA to discuss the matter or not with the press. It is part of becoming a full and participating member of the full-time space community. Here is what the ESA doctors had to say on Sunday: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Columbus_Blog/SEMTH4QR4CF_0.html

[Thorny]

It is against the law for NASA to dislose personal medical information of an employee, it is as simple as that. The ranting is useless.

The law is called HIPAA and was passed in 2003.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/199711/971104.html

http://www.hipaadvisory.com/REGS/HIPAAprimer.htm

The European Union has similar laws, predating America's.

The flight was widely expected to be extended 24 hours regardless of the spacewalk delay. The extension was made possible by the on-time launch on Thursday (Atlantis launched with a full load of consumables, a launch delay would have made the mission extension less likely.)

[antijen]

I think the previous comments safely dispel any NASA conspiracy on this matter.
I'm glad we have NASA Watch, but I felt like this report was a little too biased and immature.

[Rob Dale]

"The space agency so vehemently protects the privacy of astronauts"

Because that's the law...

"if they have to postpone a spacewalk"

Postpone - not cancel.

"which costs something like a bazillion dollars a minute"

What?

"because someone is sick, they won’t talk about it."

Again - it would be illegal, and nobody really cares the exact cause of his illness ESPECIALLY if it's not going to impact the mission objectives (which it won't.)

"In fact, those loyal folks at NASA will sit at a podium, look you straight in the eye and tell you that the medical situation has no impact to the mission."

...listen again... He said the "mission objectives" - and the mission objectives WILL NOT BE IMPACTED.

"In a strained press conference"

It was only strained because you and Mark and one other reporter don't understand the words "will not talk about a private medical issue."

And the public doesn't care what his issue was (worse than when Phil Chien would always ask what the space suit sizes being flown were) so why badger?

"In what I think he would consider going out on a limb, Shannon did tell us the situation wasn’t life threatening."

If it was life threatening, they would have ended the mission early. But I still wouldn't expect them to detail the exact illness - because (once again) that would be illegal.

I strongly suggest you take a look at the website http://nasaspaceflight.com -- you'll learn quite a bit about the shuttle program and be able to ask questions that really have value.

[Mark]

Agree with the above. The Privacy Act of 1974, HIPAA, and a few other laws and acts preclude NASA from divulging private medical information. Just because the guy is an astronaut does not mean he suddenly gave up his rights.

A federal agency following federal law...who would have thought??

Nice rant, but poor journalism.

[Daniel Perez]

I agree with Rob Dale. NASASpaceFlight.com is the best example of breaking news space flight media, that owns the news on Shuttle and Ares, and without the sensastionalistic doom angle we see in the mass media, or the ranting commentary we see in blog sites. That's why it has a huge readership and is full of NASA workers on it's forum.

Shannon was brilliant. Shame some reporters didn't get it when he said he wasn't going to elaborate. Anyone remember when Paul Hill ranted back at a journalist. Hope we get to see that again soon.

Anyway, props to you Irene on at least having this page, where you will take comments. I wonder if Marcia "You're all going to die and I'll be the one reporting it" Dunn has one? ;-)

[ARG]

We donot know what the crew member is sick with. It maybe space sickness, which nobody really understands, What they do know is that i about four days the sick person gets well. Thats one of the reasons that the train someone to be a backup.

Putting someones medical history on public display is a serious violation of there privacy and not necessary.

[Michael Parsons]

Yes, HIPAA is a real law. However, a person can waive their right to privacy and allow information to be shared. For what we pay to put astronauts on orbit, it doesn't seem unreasonable to require them to release medical information while they are on-orbit when it affects their duties. These aren't mail carriers. They are very expensive mechanics, and I'd like them to be far more open about what is and isn't going on.

[Dave]

One of the advantages of having satellite-TV access to NASA TV is the ability to watch the press conferences in real-time and unfiltered or edited. While nothing you have written is factually incorrect, your bias and editorializing is discouraging. You write as if it is a personal affront to the American taxpayer that a government agency won't, for you, break the law and tell us the details of an astronaut's medical condition. In so far as it resulted in a one-day delay in EVA #1, it isn't as if the crew just sat around on-orbit for 24 hours and played cards, they spent a full day moving items back and forth and performing the focused inspection on the OMS blanket. So far, no one has detailed a single mission objective that will not be performed as a result of the one day delay. Rather than worry about the exact nature of a crew member's illness, if there is a mission objective that won't be performed, there's your news to report. Haven't heard of one yet. I would strongly urge you to pay closer attention to Bill Harwood; I find his questions and reporting the best when it comes to representing ME, the taxpayer. Remember, you're charged with asking questions and reporting facts that ultimately are in my interest.

[Rob Dale]

"Remember, you're charged with asking questions and reporting facts that ultimately are in my interest. "

VERY good point... It seems that some reporters are asking questions that will "make them famous." Mark said that NASA should release full details since people of the world might think half of the crew is incapacitated -- I haven't noticed anyone asking such a question... As a matter of fact, there's barely been a peep about it.

Other than from sensational reporters in press conferences...

[Dave]

When astronauts have had "space sickness" in the past, NASA has always talked about it openly. It's a real issue as more and more people explore microgravity.
NASA quarantines crews for two weeks prior to launch, do they not, just to see if anything they might be carrying shows itself?
It's not too much of a stretch to guess that Hans has what it seems like everyone else is down with this winter...this stupid flu! Everyone I know has had it...I'm waiting for my turn!

[birdwatch]

Like many issues in a democracy, medical privacy, particularly with regard to people who fly in space, is not clear cut. We, the tax-paying public, are investing to find out what happens to people when they venture outside the protective bubble of Earth's atmosphere. Leaving alone the "whys" for another day, how can the public learn what it is like to fly in space if information about the people lucky enough to do so is prohibited from public release? As I've stated before, the media at JSC involved in questioning Mr. Shannon about the medical situation that affected the Atlantis mission are not probing into Mr. Schlegel's or anyone else's personal information. But if being in space makes people sick, as has been well documented, shouldn't the public at least be informed that the situation onboard was not pre-existing and is confined to one person? The carte blanche clamp on information -- which included a refusal to answer if it were the flight surgeons who banned Schlegel's spacewalk or if, for example, it came from the crew itself, seems excessive.

One more point: If an astronaut later dies from cancer that may have been triggered by radiation exposure during spaceflight, would that be protected medical information as well?

[LAB]

How exactly is divulging personal medical information to a bunch of nosey reporters and NASA critics going to help the situation?
I expect Hans got a case of space sickness. Happens even to seasoned astronauts. The folks that need to know the details already do. That's what that private medical conference was all about. The rest of us will know the gory details some time after the mission. If it turns out that he got some bug then everyone can rightly criticize the preflight quarantine process, but I ask again, how does sharing personal information with a bunch of onlookers with nothing positive to contribute help the situation now in the middle of the mission? Y'all gonna tell NASA how to fix it? Or do you just want to be privy to secret stuff for your own sick kicks?

[Haha]

We the press are supposed to look out for the people - you - that fund the flying of astronauts into space on their billions and billions of dollars.
What I find discomforting about all of this is that we were almost certainly lied to by Mike Sarafin in the press conference NASA held less than two hours before the famous act of Shannon resilience. This first briefing was hours after docking - hours after the time the crew let their mission managers know someone was sick. Mike Sarafin is a mission manager and has right to the astro's medical info. The press asked Sarafin if anyone has been sick on the mission, and he said no... Really?
Answering that question would not have violated anyone's privacy. All it would have answered is that someone in space got sick, and that it was minor and nothing to be concerned about. NASA would not have had to tell the press who it was, but it wouldn't have blown up into a big issue like this... Yay, end of story, and we're not left to guess if someone is injured, dying, etc.
Obviously ESA had no problem saying it was Schlegel. Paranoid NASA did.

[Rob Dale]

"it wouldn't have blown up into a big issue like this"

Uhh, it's really not a big issue. Nor even a small one. The public (rightfully so) couldn't care less about what specific illness did or did not delay an EVA. I bet 99% of the public doesn't even know the shuttle is up there, let alone went on a spacewalk today.

The only people that care are conspiracy theorists and a few journalists who aren't happy without "making news"