It's all pretty shocking. And pretty damn cool.

Naturally, NASA has been skewered by everyone from Congress to Conan O'Brien during this remarkable run, but perhaps it's time to cut the agency's astronauts some slack - particularly on the pre-launch "pre-gaming." Considering the constant specter of rogue insulation foam, wouldn't you opt for a cocktail to take the edge off before launch? Sure, it's against the rules, but, as any minister will tell you, so is drinking before a wedding ceremony. (Ye of glass houses, so ready to throw stones...)

Besides, is there a better time to get liquored up than at launch? The entire sequence is basically pre-programmed, and it's not like they have to make it through the alphabet backwards as part of the countdown. After ignition, it's a pretty much a straight shot, no?

Contrary to what we may think, drinking can't be all that much fun once they reach orbit. Yeah, there's probably some novelty in floating around the room in the same way that your brain floats around in your head during a good buzz, but after that wears off, options grow scarce.

Skeptical? Just think about what zero gravity does to the most common drinking games. A single round of caps would take hours. Quarters are out all together. I suppose they could do a couple turns of "stop the bottle" (like everything up there, it'd already be spinning), but the space version probably lacks some of the intrigue of the original. And who wants to play "asshole" beyond sophomore year of college?

Of course, drunk-dialing your colleagues on the international space station remains an option, but how many Russian curse words can a person learn before the yuks turn to yawns? Plus, payback's a bitch when you're strung up on the business end of a 100-foot robotic arm.

Ugh, and the hangovers! After the sun finally peeks around the curve of the earth, and the last Tang mimosa slides down the hatch, our heroes are left staring at nothing but a vast universe of hurt. Perhaps a bag or two of freeze-dried biscuits and gravy might provide some temporary relief, but even that simple pleasure invites no small peril. I mean, imagine the acid reflux in zero gravity! Although, if the stomach is doing somersaults, one may be able to achieve a measure of equilibrium by doing his or her own in the opposite direction.

But we don't want to do somersaults when we're hungover, do we? No, we want to lie down – something that's somewhat problematic in space. So with heads aching, bile flowing, and regrets burning hotter than an atmospheric re-entry, what recourse do our astronauts have but to curl up on the ceiling with one of those metallic-y space blankets and watch profiles of their colleagues on VH-1's new series, "Beyond the Spacewalks"? And even then, they'd only get a couple of hours of recovery time before having to pull it together and talk to the president or some classroom in Appleton, Wisconsin as part of a video conference.

Of course, if it weren't a tough life, they wouldn't be heroes – which, despite these shenanigans, they remain. While their humanity may not play well with kindergarteners or conservatives, high school and college kids can surely relate. And if an occasional look at the sordid side of science gets a few more kids to take calculus or physics, well, perhaps NASA's budget is money well spent – regardless of whether the astronauts are doing moon shots or Jäger shots. ****

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