The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Tuesday decided to conduct an extensive safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, after SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk publicly smoked marijuana during an interview. SpaceX and Boeing are both under contract to fly NASA’s astronauts into space.
William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the review will begin in 2019 and examine “everything and anything that could impact safety”.
In September, Musk smoked marijuana and drank whiskey with Joe Rogan, a podcast host and comedian on the show The Joe Rogan Experience. Shares of Tesla Inc, an American automotive company founded and owned by Musk, fell after he smoked marijuana on the show.
However, NASA spokesperson Bob Jacobs said the safety review would “ensure the companies are meeting NASA’s requirements for workplace safety, including the adherence to a drug-free environment”.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the firm wants to ensure that the public has faith in its programme to fly ordinary human beings into space. The first such flights are scheduled for 2019. “If I see something that’s inappropriate, the key concern to me is what is the culture that led to that inappropriateness and is NASA involved in that,” he told The Washington Post.
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