NASA says it was a mistake to allow Victorian MP Tim Smith into its program, following news the 38 year-old crashed a spacecraft into a local asteroid in the early hours of this morning.
Smith had allegedly been out drinking with friends before getting behind the wheel of the $1.2 billion DART spacecraft. He claims he didn’t see the asteroid coming towards him, before colliding with it head-on. Investigators claim Smith was travelling at speeds of up to 6.44 kilometres per second and had a blood-alcohol reading more than twice the legal limit. Both the spacecraft and the asteroid were badly damaged.
After initially vowing to continue on at NASA, Smith now says he will stand down to concentrate on crashing vehicles in his local Kew electorate.
