Astronaut pleads, headline writers harumph
November 11th, 2009 | Aviation Blogs NASA Science and technology | Posted by Phil Ewing
After a scandal that was out of this world, the Lisa Nowak story has returned to Earth, much as the space shuttle Discovery landed in December // NASA
Reporters, editors, bloggers and late-night comedians are losing an icon this week — the most infamous astronaut of all time, Capt. Lisa Nowak, closed out the story that has brought NASA its most public attention since the moonshot.
Nowak pleaded guilty to assaulting a fellow astronaut, Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, in a crime for the ages: Nowak drove more than 1,000 miles, from Houston to Orlando — geared up with a steel mallet, a wig, a BB gun, a knife, latex gloves, rubber tubing, garbage bags and pepper spray — and attacked Shipman as she tried to get into her car in a parking lot.
The motive? Nowak was apparently jealous that Shipman stol’d her man, Cmdr. Bill Oefelein, who was at the center of the astronaut love triangle. Other sensational elements? The infamous diapers. The e-mails. Just when you thought there were no other ridiculous ways for the story to go, there they were.
That’s all over now. But The Register isn’t wasting the last chance for this sort of thing — its headline today was “Astronaut love-dustup mace space ace Nowak cops plea,” with the sub-hed: “Anger management classes for wiggy carpark catfight.”
Comments
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Mike Licht Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 3:36 pmIt’s Not Captain Nowak’s fault. Blame NASA’s equipment.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/astronaut-sex-scandalguilty/