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NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps was supposed to be in space right now, as the first African-American crew member living on the International Space Station. But instead she's on the ground doing all of the things astronauts do when they're not in space—training, monitoring programs, working as a capcom in Mission Control, and more.
Since being pulled from her flight in January, a mission that launched about two weeks ago for a six-month tour on the space station, Epps has remained quiet in public. NASA did not specify the reasons for her removal from Expedition 56 to the space station, saying only that, "These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn’t provide information."
However, Epps did finally speak publicly this week, appearing at the Tech Open Air technology festival in Berlin on June 21, where she was interviewed by journalist Megan Gannon. The website CollectSPACE provided a transcript of the discussion.
Asked why she was taken off the Expedition 56 flight, Epps said she could not go into great detail. “I can't speculate in this forum why that was done, but it was a decision of my management and it is something that we're going to try to work through,” she said. However, Epps noted that she passed all of her NASA training, her Russian training, as well as exams for operating European and Japanese modules on the space station.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Monday June 25 2018, @08:04AM (2 children)
CIA technical intelligence officer in Afghanistan. Multiple tours.
Common opinion seems to suggest the Russian's really didn't care about that, and some cosmonauts voiced disappointments at her removal. (Maybe too loudly?).
She was notified while in Russia doing final training, which never happened before.
She says:
If you realize who your friends are, you also probably just realized who might be your enemies.
All in all, this sounds like someone who said something unwise, impolitic, or too political, or maybe just laughed at the wrong joke, or I suppose some behavior issue could have been witnessed/reported as well, perhaps in Russia.
Word got back, and NASA got worried about an uncontrolled mouth in space.
It had to be serious. Because the last thing NASA would want to do is trigger a Black Lives Matter issue for a War Veteran, Hero, and female astronaut. It wasn't done on a whim, or racism (unless its her own). Because that would be so stupid that higher ups would step in.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Monday June 25 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)
>>> that would be so stupid that higher ups would step in.
Based on experience of the past year or so, there is no longer a limit on stupidity; and being a decorated veteran has suddenly become less of an automatic bonus now that women (and others) can claim it more often.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 25 2018, @06:13PM
at the top, at least.
🌻🌻 [google.com]