Eloquent Incoherence

For some reason, I’ve always gotten a kick out of reading weird news stories, and today’s news about a bizarre NASA love triangle saga is quite a gem. According to police, 43 year-old Lisa Marie Nowak drove 1000 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront Colleen Shipman. Nowak believed Shipman was romantically involved with William Oefelein, whom Nowak had apparently been obsessed with. All three individuals are NASA astronauts. Nowak wore an adult diaper during the drive so she wouldn’t have to stop for bathroom breaks. Wearing a trench coat and wig, Nowak waited for Shipman at Orlando International Airport, where Shipman had just arrived after a flight. As Shipman got into her car in the parking lot, Nowak slapped her window, began crying, and attacked Shipman with pepper spray when Shipman opened the window. Shipman managed to drive off and call police from a parking lot toll booth. Officers later found Nowak attempting to dispose of a garbage bag containing a BB gun, a steel mallet, a folding knife, four feet of rubber tubing, several plastic garbage bags, $600 in cash, and the trench coat and wig Nowak had been wearing during her confrontation with Shipman. After searching her car, police found latex gloves, an unused CO2 cartridge, copies of e-mail correspondence between Oefelein and Shipman, a letter in which Nowak professed her love for Oefelein, and handwritten directions to Shipman’s home. Nowak faces charges of kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence, and battery.

Nowak is married (to someone else) with three children. She is a Navy captain who has logged over 1500 flight hours in 30 different aircraft, including the space shuttle Discovery. Shipman is an Air Force captain who was stationed at Cape Canaveral, FL. Oefelein is a Navy commander who piloted the most recent voyage of the space shuttle Discovery. The extent of Nowak’s relationship with Oefelein remains unclear; the two never flew on a mission together but participated in an 11-day training program in Quebec. Given that Nowak clearly has some psychological issues, it wouldn’t come as a shocker if her relationship with Oefelein was entirely imagined.

UPDATE: Prosecutors have added attempted first-degree murder to the list of charges Nowak will face. It’s unclear if police have uncovered new evidence indicating that Nowak intended to murder Shipman or if the additional charge is merely a tactic by prosecutors to keep Nowak in jail after the judge rejected their request to deny her bail. If it’s the latter, I’m not sure how prosecutors can simply tack on a serious charge to keep a suspect behind bars; the facts of this case, as the press has reported them, don’t seem to support a murder charge. If her possession of a knife, mallet, and BB gun is the best that prosecutors can do, I expect that the charge will probably be thrown out. Charging her with murder just to keep her in jail is a pretty dirty move, in my opinion.

CLARIFICATION: The American phrase “going postal” derives from a series of unrelated incidents that occurred during the 1980’s and 1990’s in which disgruntled U.S. postal workers went on shooting rampages at work. The phrase has come to refer to any violent outburst of rage occurring after a sustained buildup of stress. Although statistical evidence does not indicate that postal workers have a greater propensity for violent outbursts, the high profile nature of these incidents led to the widespread perception of postal workers as “those guys that always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody”, thereby giving giving rise to the phrase “going postal”. Perhaps this NASA incident will shatter the widespread perception of astronauts as “clean-cut, athletic go-getters” who are better than the rest of us (and yes, I do consider references from Seinfeld and The Simpsons to be accurate indicators of public perception).

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