Kinda an ugly PR image thing for NASA.
Yeah not a wholesome, family friendly moment that’s for sure.
CC
I remember that well! I had a former girlfriend from high school find me online during the time this crazy thing was going on. She was very serious about resparking a flame from 40 years ago that never sparked the first time around.
I was worried for 6 months or so that she’d show up here. She kept sending me Google Earth photos of my home and office. I’m glad she left me alone…
In February 2007, U.S. astronaut Lisa Nowak drove from Houston, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, to confront the woman who’d won the affections of an astronaut that Nowak had been involved with. Instead of having the conversation she claimed she’d wanted, Nowak was arrested for attacking the other woman. A story about the space program and an out-of-control love triangle would naturally capture attention, but the reported detail that Nowak wore diapers on her 900-mile drive in order to avoid bathroom breaks transformed the incident into irresistible fodder for tabloids and late-night talk shows alike (though Nowak’s attorney would later insist his client never put on diapers). Nowak was an inspiration the 2019 film Lucy in the Sky, which stars Natalie Portman as an astronaut named Lucy Cola.
Nowak was able to balance a successful career and family
Nowak first became interested in space when she was five years old. “I remember the moon landing and watching those astronauts, and I thought that was very exciting,” she said in a 2005 interview. She studied aerospace engineering at the United States Naval Academy and went on to receive a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. In 1996, Nowak made it through the competitive selection process to become an astronaut. She traveled to space as a mission specialist on the shuttle Discovery in July 2006.
Being an astronaut is a demanding profession but her job didn’t keep Nowak from starting a family. She married Richard, a classmate from the Naval Academy and they had three children (a son and twin girls). Nowak took pride in both having a family and staying on course in the space program, saying in one interview, “It’s definitely a challenge to do the flying and take care of even one child and do all the other things you have to do. But I learned that you can do it.”
In 2004, Nowak began an affair with a fellow astronaut
Yet behind the facade problems existed in Nowak’s personal life. In 2004, before she’d made it into space, she began an affair with fellow astronaut William Oefelein. (Oefelein trained with Nowak but the two did not go into space at the same time.) In 2005, Oefelein divorced his wife. After 19 years of marriage, Nowak and her husband separated early in 2007. At the time she seems to have envisioned a future with Oefelein.