Astronaut to face potential attempted murder charge

[Damelon]

A strange crime of passion:

www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/astronaut.arrested/index.html

[Cameraman Jenn]

Why oh WHY would you wear diapers rather than just leave early enough to take bathroom breaks!!!! What a freak!

[matrixman]

Sad.

I like to think that astronauts are above this sort of banality. I have great respect for their profession, so it disgusts me to see this kind of petty behaviour from one of their own.

[aTOMiC2]

I've always thought of Astronauts as the ultimate professionals. Cool under pressure. Dedicated to the mission come heck or high water. A story like this is a good reminder that in the end the men and women of the Astronaut corps are flesh and blood, falible, human beings who do amazing things. This story sounds like a bad tv movie. Very disturbing.

[Cameraman Jenn]

OOOH! That has lifetime television for women original movie written ALL over it!!!!!

[wayfriend]

I would ditto LFB.

I'm worried that this will become a "wimmin ain't cut out to be astronauts" thing.

[A Gunslinger]

Letterman sacrifices small animals and prays to pagan gods for to get this sort of material.

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

Talk about cracking under pressure. What a flake. Should we be worried that someone like that passed their psych profile? Or does nobody do those anymore?

I am far more disturbed about this: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6334525.stm

Disgusted by what that man did, and also very disturbed by the law. So basically, if he rapes a boy he gets life in prison, but if he'd raped a girl, he'd be out in ten years like every other sex offender out there. What the hell??? What kind of a law is this?

Maybe I ought to split this post and move it to the Tank...

[Wyldewode]

Bizare behavior from the astronaut. I wonder if she had a "psychotic break" when she separated from her husband? At least she was unsuccessful in harming the other woman.

[matrixman]

I've always thought of Astronauts as the ultimate professionals. Cool under pressure. Dedicated to the mission come heck or high water. A story like this is a good reminder that in the end the men and women of the Astronaut corps are flesh and blood, falible, human beings who do amazing things. This story sounds like a bad tv movie. Very disturbing.

I guess I'm guilty of holding astronauts to an impossibly high standard of conduct. I've always regarded astronauts as special - the privileged few among all of humanity who have seen the Earth from space, or will get the chance to do so. Like you say, astronauts are the ultimate professionals. They are great role models. Poster boys and girls for the the space program.

After watching some more coverage on this story on CNN, I've come to feel a bit more pity for Nowak. As an astronaut, she had completed her space shuttle mission honourably. The problem is, where do you go from there as astronaut? Reaching outer space is literally reaching the top of that profession. What other direction is there but down after that high? So, if I'm to believe the speculations of psychotherapists, Nowak's recent emotional instability could be symptomatic of an inability to cope with "normal" life after having achieved her single-minded goal of going into space. It was interesting to hear from other former astronauts who said they too had trouble adjusting to "life after space" and sought therapy. Since astronauts are a tight-knit bunch, they're usually successful at keeping their personal lives out of public scrutiny...unless it's something really bizarre as in Nowak's case.

I heard also that the competition for seats on a space mission among astronauts is almost "inhumane." So many applicants, so few spots. So, maybe once you've achieved your goal of getting that seat on the space shuttle, it's hard to focus on what to do with your life afterwards. Some cracks start to show, and in Nowak's case, the cracks burst open.

Hey, guess I'm capable of psychotherapy babble myself.

[Avatar]

'Tank it if you want Alynna.

(We've already got the astronaut story in MM's random news thread though. )

--A

[matrixman]

Well, we saw Damelon's thread here first, so too bad for you, Herr Tank Commandant.

[Avatar]

<--- New Title.



--A

[Damelon]

I think I've been around long enough to know where to place my threads before I post them.

At its basic level it's a simple human story.

Don't worry, Herr Commandant Av, I'm brewing an interesting thread for your forum as well.

I share some of MM's dismay though. Astronauts have been heroes to me since, on my seventh birthday, I stood in the back yard looking at the nearly full moon for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. For one of them to show a fallible side brings me back to earth, so to speak.

[Avatar]

I never worry. And I look forward to your next contribution.

--A

[CovenantJr]

Talk about cracking under pressure. What a flake.

Best. Analysis. Ever.

[kevinswatch]

Yeah, that whole astronaut thing was a great story. The diapers put it over the top. Funny stuff. Silly NASA.-jay

[A Gunslinger]

The comedic formula guarantees greatness:

Diapers + NASA + Love triangle = laffs aplenty.

[matrixman]

I share some of MM's dismay though. Astronauts have been heroes to me since, on my seventh birthday, I stood in the back yard looking at the nearly full moon for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. For one of them to show a fallible side brings me back to earth, so to speak.

Astronauts became heroes to me too as a kid, after learning about the great space race of the 50's and 60's. (And just to be fair, I thought the Soviet Cosmonauts were also cool.)

It's no surprise that From The Earth To The Moon is my favorite TV miniseries.

It's funny, but I feel nostalgic about that time in history, even though I hadn't been born yet.