The 264-Mile High Club

The Boomer making the most news today is Lisa Nowak. She is an astronaut who was arrested for attempted murder.

The charges involve an alleged love triangle with her, astronaut Bill Oefelein and Air Force officer Colleen Shipman.

The first thing I thought of when I heard this was: did they fly a Shuttle mission together? You can guess my second question.

No is the answer to the first question. Oefelein was on the most recent mission in December, Nowak flew last summer. They did train together at some point.

Astronauts were my heroes growing up. They were smart, daring and brave. They were clean cut, well-mannered men. Some of them probably fell into the “boys will be boys” category, but that was never noted in the media and it never occurred to me that they were anything but perfect.

Now every detail of people’s lives makes news. I’d rather not know most of those details. This story, however, is bizarre. If a TV show plot read like this, I’d change channels because it isn’t believable.

If it’s all true, why? I understand how the love triangle part can happen. But what makes someone with a very public job drive 900 miles nearly non-stop, wearing a diaper so she doesn’t need to make restroom stops, to confront her rival at an airport? Did she think this part of her life could be kept private? Aren’t there mental tests in the Shuttle program that screen for psychological problems? Did working in a cramped space at an altitude of 264 miles alter her brain waves?

So now a well-respected astronaut is charged with attempted murder, among other things. She is the lead story in every news venue and not in a good way. She faces public ridicule and so does her family, who live in the same Maryland town where I work.

Some hero, ey?