Just a little follow-up from my earlier post, “The End of the Space Age as We Know It.”
Lisa Nowak, who seemed to spring fully grown from the brow of science fiction writer Barry N. Malzberg, has retired from the U.S. Navy with an “other than honorable” discharge and a demotion, following a Navy board of inquiry. She was the member of the astronaut corps who stalked a fellow military officer, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, after Nowak learned Shipman had been romantically involved with a paramour of Nowak’s, former space shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein. Nowak was sentenced to a year’s probation after being convicted of burglary and was expelled from NASA’s astronaut corps.
The most sensationalistic and tabloid-ready aspect of the saga was that Nowak had driven non-stop from Houston to the Orlando Airport in pursuit of Shipman while wearing adult diapers. Oddly enough, according to the Fox News story, Nowak denied wearing the diapers, which were found in her car. The story doesn’t mention her denying any other aspect of the bizarre set of circumstances. I guess it’s okay to stalk an Air Force captain and shoot pepper spray in her face in a parking lot. But wearing diapers…? Well, that just crosses the line.
An officer and a gentlewoman has her honor to uphold, after all.
Glad to read that we’re no longer paying Lisa Nowak’s salary, and that her pension will be reduced. Although I kind of appreciated her purely unintentional, out-of-left-field shout-out to my good friend Barry, a writer who deserves to be read more.
