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H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
Little by little, a picture is beginning to emerge of Lisa Marie Nowak, the astronaut arrested in Florida on Monday for — well, you know the story. The results of NASA's psychiatric evaluation of Nowak haven't been released, but people who knew here are talking to reporters and telling them how Nowak was likely under an unbelievable amount of pressure between her personal and professional lives.
According to Nowak's NASA biography, she has an impressive record with the U.S. Navy, logging more than 1,500 flight hours in over 30 different aircraft. She came to NASA in the summer of 1996 and went into space aboard Discovery last summer, where she operated the shuttle's robotic arm. But the bio doesn't say anything about what might have been a troubled personal life: A few weeks ago, Nowak's husband, Richard, separated from her after 19 years of marriage. It might have been a turning point in an already stressful situation for Nowak, ex-NASA flight surgeon Jon Clark, who lost his wife, Laurel, in the Columbia disaster, told the AP. "She was the epitome of managing a very hectic career, making sacrifices to accommodate her family," Clark said. "All those stresses can conspire to be overwhelming. ... Clearly she suffered a lot of mental anguish."
One thing that's still not clear is the nature of the relationship between Nowak and fellow astronaut Bill Oefelein. Nowak drove to Orlando to confront Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, who she apparently believed was a rival for Oefelein's affection; Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," but authorities found a love letter she had written him in her car when they arrested her. We do know Oefelein and his wife, Michaella, were divorced in 2005, but it's not clear whether Nowak had anything to do with that: Yesterday, Michaella's mom, Charlene Davis, told the AP that Nowak wasn't responsible for the breakup but gave a different version of events to the New York Post.
Whatever the circumstances were, Nowak's bail bondsman, John Vonachen, said it seems Nowak "just snapped." "She just didn’t seem like she was there, you know. She filled out her paperwork. She was OK for a little while, and then it would be like she would go off into another world while we were all talking," Vonachen told KHOU. Clark said he hopes people will sympathize with Nowak: "Obviously, she had some things that didn't go well. Any of us could be there. All of us have a dark side," he said.
As for Nowak's future, well, it doesn't look so good. She could face anything from a court-martial to forced retirement, but whatever happens, observers agree that her life as a naval officer is over. "Anything done to her is going to ruin her career," retired Rear Adm. John Hutson, a Navy lawyer, told the Orlando Sentinel.
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