The night-walkers of Uganda

94

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Spacewoman falls to Earth on charge 
of trying to kill love rival 
Shuttle astronaut arrested after alleged airport 
attack. Male colleague said to be at centre of 
love triangle.
Ed Pilkington in New York 
February 7, 2007
Last July, Lisa Nowak took 12 days, 18
hours, 37 minutes and 54 seconds, travelling
5.3 million miles, to join one of the world’s
most select clubs: travellers in space. Last
Monday, she only took about 14 hours, and
950 miles, to lose her place in the club.
Yesterday Mrs Nowak was charged with
attempted first-degree murder, attempted
kidnapping and battery. Nothing like this has
ever happened to a NASA astronaut before.
Apparently, the married mother of three,
separated from her husband, was part of
a love triangle with a fellow male astronaut
and a female air force captain. She thought
he was going out with her.
Last night, a Florida judge decided to let
Mrs Nowak go until her trial. But she had to
pay $25,000 (£13,000) bail, wear a tracking
device and must not contact her victim
again.
The group to which 43 year-old Mrs Nowak
belongs is extremely ‘select’: there are only
97 astronauts already trained and ready
to fly. Only 20 are women. NASA has only
chosen a total of 321 astronauts since the
US agency started its space programme in
1959.
This is why Mrs Nowak’s actions early on
Monday morning were so surprising. For
10 years before her flight in the Discovery
space shuttle in July, NASA had very
carefully selected and trained her to live
with extreme stress. She had an important
technical job on Discovery, in charge of a
robotic arm for repairing the international
space station when the shuttle joined it in
space.
Before the mission, she said she had first
become interested in space at the age of
five when she watched the moon landing on
television, and on visits to the Air and Space
Museum in Washington. But this Monday,
she set off on her own private mission.
Mrs Nowak told Orlando police that she
drove 950 miles from Houston, Texas, to
Orlando, on Sunday. She took with her a
carbon-dioxide powered pellet gun, a folding
knife with a four-inch blade, pepper spray,
a steel hammer and $600 in cash. She also
took several large black bin liners, six latex
gloves and rubber tubing, as well as a wig
and two hooded coats for disguise.
She also wore a nappy in the car, so that
she wouldn’t have to stop very often – just
like astronauts, who wear nappies during
take off and landing.
She explained that she had discovered that
Colleen Shipman, a US air force captain,
was flying in to Orlando that night. Mrs
Nowak wanted to be there to “scare her” into
talking about her relationship with the man at
the centre of the love triangle.
He is Bill Oefelein, 41, from Alaska, who
did astronaut training with Mrs Nowak. Like
her, he first went into space last year, also
on Discovery, but they have never flown
together. Police found signs of Mrs Nowak’s
feelings for Mr Oefelein in a letter in her car.
They also found emails between him and
Ms Shipman and directions to Ms Shipman’s
house. Mrs Nowak told police she had “more
than a working relationship, but less than a
romantic relationship” with him.
Ms Shipman said that Mrs Nowak, whom
she had never met before, followed her