Psychological Screening

Question One:

Think of three of your friends or former schoolmates. You have all been chosen by your employer to participate in an exciting and challenging journey that will put your lives at risk. You will need to train with your three colleagues for several years, during which you will learn to depend on each other's training and professionalism in potentially life-endangering circumstances.

After your training is complete, you find that your friends will be making the journey earlier than you. You are disappointed, but happy that they have been given the opportunity to put their years of training to practical use.

The journey is successful, but on the voyage back home, your friends are killed, their bodies destroyed beyond recognition. You soon realize that your friends died, not because of any fault of their own, but because your employer did not assume responsibility for their safety and, indeed, did not make any extra effort to inform your friends of their potential endangerment, the very kind of endangerment that you spent several years learning to anticipate and minimize.

Many months later, you follow the same path they took on their own fatal journey, but this time the journey is successful and you return safely. You fall in love with another classmate, one who is about to go on the same journey from which you have just returned. You want to go on the journey again.

Question: Are you insane? Discuss.

Here is NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale's statement regarding Capt. Lisa Nowak. Please refer to this statement in your response.