NASA Advice: No Booze or Smokes for Trapped Miners

(Sept. 1) -- They haven't seen daylight, family or friends in 27 days. And now NASA doctors say that the 33 men trapped at a mine in northern Chile must also learn to live without two of their favorite vices: cigarettes and alcohol.

In a phone conversation with President Sebastian Pinera last week, the miners -- who will be trapped for the next two to four months -- asked for "a little glass of wine" to mark Chile's Sept. 18 independence day, according to the Los Angeles Times. However, at a news conference Tuesday, NASA officials -- who are using their astronaut training experience to help the miners stay mentally and physically fit during their confinement -- said that rescuers wouldn't be shipping crates of booze into the mine any time soon.

"From the alcohol standpoint, we need to first get their nutrition up before we make any considerations there," said James Michael Duncan, NASA's deputy chief doctor, according to Reuters.

The miners are estimated to have lost an estimated 22 pounds each during the 17 days they spent underground before being discovered by rescuers. To help get the men regain their strength, rescuers have sent high-calorie, high-protein foods via 6-inch-wide, 2,200-foot-long emergency supply boreholes.

Some of the men have also requested cigarettes. Health officials, though, have only allowed nicotine patches and gum to be sent down. "It's an environment that's pretty enclosed, and we don't want to contribute to any of the problems within the atmosphere of the mine," Duncan explained.

The U.S. space agency official said that his job was to try to prevent feelings of "hopelessness" setting in among the men. "I think the miners have shown tremendous strength in surviving for as long as they did without any contact with the surface,"

"In a circumstance where you're dealing with uncertainty, it's important not to build up false hopes, but it's also important to be as honest with the miners with regards to the situation," Duncan said in comments broadcast by the BBC. " Keep in mind that the miners do this for a living, and so they know exactly how long the drilling will take and how deep they are in the mine."

That rescue process started in earnest Tuesday, when engineers began using specialized drilling equipment to bore out a 26-inch-wide escape tunnel. By the end of the day, they'd burrowed down 26 feet, or roughly 1 percent of the target depth, according to Reuters.

Also Tuesday, the mine's owners apologized to a parliamentary committee. "The pain caused by this unwanted and unforeseen situation means we must ask forgiveness for the anguish being felt at this time," said Alejandro Bohn, of the San Esteban mining group, according to The Telegraph. "This is a terrible situation and we hope that it will soon come to a happy end."

That apology will mean little to the miners' families though, as it was recently revealed that the company does not have enough money to pay the trapped men's salaries. The government has said it can't cover the miners' wages or pensions due to the country's strict labor laws. That's left many of the families gathered at Camp Hope -- a tented city that has sprung up next to the mine -- wondering how they'll survive over the coming months.

"More than anything, we want Esteban out of the mine," Blanca Rojas, whose brother Esteban is trapped underground, told The Wall Street Journal, "but his family must eat."