Love Scorned! Pepper Spray! A BB Gun! Houston, We Have a Problem. (Navy Captain in diapers)

NY Times ^ | February 6, 2007 | John Tierney

[neverdem]

This cannot be a happy day at the NASA press office.

Lisa Nowak, 43, drove hundreds of miles to confront a rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut, Bill Oefelein, according to police. (Photos: NASA)It is always awkward answering questions when one of your employees is arrested. It becomes still more awkward when the employee is an astronaut. And it gets really, really awkward when, as the Times’ Christine Hauser reports, the employee is accused by police of driving from Houston to Orlando in diapers, arming herself with a BB gun and pepper spray, donning a wig and trench coat, and attempting to kidnap a woman she considered a rival for the affections of another employee — the pilot who flew the shuttle Discovery to the space station last December.

No, not an easy time at the press office. But I hope, in between fending off questions about BB guns and the adequacy of NASA’s pre-flight psychological screening, the press officers can look at the bright side: At least their phones are ringing. Miracle of miracles, people are talking about the space shuttle!

Scientists ritually bemoan all the money spent on astronauts at the expense of unmanned missions that are far more cost-efficient. But you need people in space to get people on Earth interested enough to pay the bills. On Friday NASA released a gorgeous picture of a methane cloud on Titan taken by an unmanned spacecraft. A few bloggers like me reprinted it, but how much water-cooler talk have you heard about it? All the methane on Titan can’t compete with one jealous astronaut.

The only way to get the public to pay for a manned mission to Mars, I’ve argued is to turn it into a long-running reality TV show, with a cast of astronauts carefully...

[neverdem]

About TierneyLab

John Tierney always wanted to be a scientist but went into journalism because its peer-review process was a great deal easier to sneak through. Now a columnist for the Science Times section, Tierney previously wrote columns for the Op-Ed page, the Metro section and the Times Magazine. Before that he covered science for magazines like Discover, Hippocrates and Science 86.

With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The Lab's work is guided by two founding principles:

1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong. 2. But that's a good working theory.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, particularly from researchers with new findings. E-mail tierneylab@nytimes.com.

They don't even offer a version of the "printer friendly" printed page for Mr. Tierney's blog. He was one of the very small number of OpEd columnists to be bothered to look for in syndication, much pay the fee for Times Select. He was supposed to replace Bill Safire. IMHO, he's not long for the NY Times.

[Red Steel]

...driving from Houston to Orlando in diapers

She didn't want to stop to pee?

[x1stcav]

I just saw this by a commenter on Ann Althouse's blog:

I packed the bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I'm gonna be high --on Tang by ten
A shuttle berth's so tight I'm like his wife
It's lonely out in space
On such a diapered flight

And I think it's gonna be nine hundred miles
Some pepper spray as hot as shuttle tiles
A mallet, tubing, and some garbage bags
Oh no no no I'm a Rocket Ma'am
Rocket Ma'am burning out her fuse out here alone

Houston ain't the place to raise your kids
In fact it's hot as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you flip
And Colleen Shipman? I don't understand
Oefelein! I'm the super freak!
A Rocket Man --needs a Rocket Ma'am

And I think it's gonna be nine hundred miles...
Some pepper spray as hot as shuttle tiles
A mallet, tubing, and some garbage bags
I'm a Rocket Ma'am