# Oh, My Goodness...



## Jonathan Randall (Feb 5, 2007)

Female astronaut and Navy Captain (one rank below Rear Admiral) allegedly confronts, assaults and attempts to kidnap rival for another astronaut's attention:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...feb05,0,6104316.story?coll=orl-home-headlines


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## exile (Feb 6, 2007)

Maybe being out in space (or simulation training) does something ominous to your mind... this is definitely on my top-ten list of bizarrest news stories of all time...


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## rutherford (Feb 6, 2007)

She's married and has 3 children?

I think that news story broke my brain.


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## Ping898 (Feb 6, 2007)

He'S NOT WORTH IT!!!....I've never understood why a seemingly sane woman would do something like this over a guy....

i'm thinking she just lost any chance at a promotion....


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## grydth (Feb 6, 2007)

Sadly, such a story is by no means unique. Two other examples:

Some time ago, the middle aged Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler, wigged out over a woman, and wound up being arrested and removed from the bench.

Last December, a former TV News anchor, Maria Damiano, was arrested in Syracuse for trespassing - she was lurking around the home of a woman dating her old boyfriend.

Sometimes we erroneously assume that prominent and professional figures just have to have a higher degree of emotional stability and good judgement when it comes to intimate personal relationships.


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## searcher (Feb 6, 2007)

Sad.  SOOOO Sad.


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## IcemanSK (Feb 6, 2007)

It's amazing what people will turn themselves into knots over. It's the human condition, I s'pose.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 6, 2007)

I saw this just this morning and it is unbelievable. Ruin your life and career for this. 

It just boggles the mind


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## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 6, 2007)

Amazing, simply amazing. (and not in a positive way)


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## JBrainard (Feb 6, 2007)

grydth said:


> Sadly, such a story is by no means unique.


 
I stopped being surprised by this type of thing a long time ago. People are crazy, fact of life.


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## exile (Feb 6, 2007)

JBrainard said:


> I stopped being surprised by this type of thing a long time ago. People are crazy, fact of life.



And crazy as it is, it's still not quite as lunatic, IMO, as that case of the Texas cheerleader's mother a couple of years ago who decided to deal with her daughter's chief rival for a place on their high school cheerleading squad by arranging to have the girl's own mother murdered. The idea was that the mother's murder would upset the daughter and her audition for the squad would be ruined. The plot fell apart, of course, and the woman who tried to arrange the murder was convicted and packed off to the slammer. Compared with _that_, almost anything else, including this case, seems a model of rationality. 

But it's _still_ on my top-ten list!


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## jdinca (Feb 6, 2007)

People can be whacked where the heart's involved. What's really shocking is that based on what was found in her car, she was going to kill and cut this person up. Definitely gone off the deep end.


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 6, 2007)

I suppose that once you have been in space driving 1000 miles to kidnap someone doesn't seem that far.

She definitely demonstrated the Right Stuff.


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## CoryKS (Feb 6, 2007)

In space... no one can hear you scream.

But in Orlando, they can.  You betcha.


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## exile (Feb 6, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> I suppose that once you have been in space driving 1000 miles to kidnap someone doesn't seem that far.
> 
> She definitely demonstrated the Right Stuff.



... till she actually tried to pull it off. At that point, it turned into Mr. Bean. 

You would give... well not anything, but a fair amount, to be able to ask her, `What the hell were you _thinking???_'. Very little is as fascinating as the screwups that are possible in human minds. The problem is, you'd probably get a completely incoherent reply. Maybe it's better not to know...


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## Rich Parsons (Feb 6, 2007)

Now I have lost all respect for Letterman.

Tonight they have announced he will do the top ten reasons an  astronaut is out to kill you.

Sad very sad in my opinion.


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## Jonathan Randall (Feb 6, 2007)

Rich Parsons said:


> Now I have lost all respect for Letterman.
> 
> Tonight they have announced he will do the top ten reasons an astronaut is out to kill you.
> 
> Sad very sad in my opinion.


 
I agree - some things are not funny.


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## shesulsa (Feb 7, 2007)

Is there any possibility of this being a result of some as-yet-undiagnosed effect from being in space for a while?


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## Jonathan Randall (Feb 7, 2007)

shesulsa said:


> Is there any possibility of this being a result of some as-yet-undiagnosed effect from being in space for a while?


 
I'm wondering whether or not something such as, say, Mercury poisoning could be involved? There's no way that I see, IMO, she could have gotten through such training and screening as she did over the course of 25+ years (Naval Academy, Navy Career, Shuttle crew) with as many screws loose as this behavior appears to represent. Something happened along the way...

BTW, I'm thinking maybe the male Shuttle Pilot iin this "love triangle" may not turn out to be such a gem himself.


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## Don Roley (Feb 7, 2007)

This is kind of the point that caused me to wonder.



> But police said Nowak intended to kill Shipman, 30, when she bought a knife, BB Gun, and other supplies, got in her car in Houston, and made the 12-hour drive to Orlando, wearing diapers so she would not have to stop along the way.



Ok, so unless she is so small she can get into a pair from one of her kids she had to go out and buy a set for adults. She wore them to save time I assume. But the time it takes to buy and change into them has to be more than a quick pit stop. I mean, it just does not take all that much time to use the factilities and she would also avoid the questions and suspicions if she was pulled over along the way.

But if she was nuts- that explains a lot.


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## Carol (Feb 7, 2007)

Jonathan Randall said:


> I'm wondering whether or not something such as, say, Mercury poisoning could be involved? There's no way that I see, IMO, she could have gotten through such training and screening as she did over the course of 25+ years (Naval Academy, Navy Career, Shuttle crew) with as many screws loose as this behavior appears to represent.


 
I'm not sure.  While it's possible...there are a lot of people that have gone up in space...mental health issues can happen to any body at any age...including astronauts.  

The stigma of mental health issues is still present in civilian society...its a lot worse in the military, and she's undoubtedly a disciplined person.   She may have gotten very good at concealing her loose screws.

We largely know about the story because she was an astronaut and a high ranking military officer.   Had she been an ordinary citizen and done this...especially where no one was killed...this probably would have been just another crime in a rather violent city.


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## IcemanSK (Feb 7, 2007)

The media makes a monster or freak out of this woman: cuz it's just more interesting that way. The reality is, she is in need of mental health treatment. If she were a bag lady on skid row, this wouldn't be a story. Because she's an astronaut, it's a sexy story.

It's just sad.


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## IcemanSK (Feb 7, 2007)

This woman is obviously mentally ill. If she weren't an astronaunt, it wouldn't be the "sexy" story they make it out to be.

It is just really sad. I'm glad no one was hurt. This woman needs help.


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## tellner (Feb 7, 2007)

Love, sex and jealousy make people do stupid things.


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## donna (Feb 7, 2007)

IcemanSK said:


> This woman is obviously mentally ill. If she weren't an astronaunt, it wouldn't be the "sexy" story they make it out to be.
> 
> It is just really sad. I'm glad no one was hurt. This woman needs help.


Well said, my sentiments exactly!


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## exile (Feb 7, 2007)

Carol Kaur said:


> I'm not sure.  While it's possible...there are a lot of people that have gone up in space...mental health issues can happen to any body at any age...including astronauts.
> 
> The stigma of mental health issues is still present in civilian society...its a lot worse in the military, and she's undoubtedly a disciplined person.   She may have gotten very good at concealing her loose screws.
> 
> We largely know about the story because she was an astronaut and a high ranking military officer.   Had she been an ordinary citizen and done this...especially where no one was killed...this probably would have been just another crime in a rather violent city.



Carol's post started me thinking about this issue of craziness and its concealment... people are remarkably good at concealing mental aberrations. Often they know they're disturbed, or worse, in a strangely compartmentalized way.  That kind of compartmentalizationseparating your life out into parts where you're disciplined and parts where you're out of control, delusional and violently (self-)destructiveis something that can fool even mental health professionals, let alone workaday folk whose image of mental illness is based on garbage TV shows. But it's very common. 

Sure, it's possible exposure to as yet unkown disruptive effects in space might have affected her. But it's going to be hard to show that; the derangement power of space exploration isn't all that evident in the population of current and former astronauts. There might be some specific condition she suffered from which space exposure eventually ramped up to the breaking point... but how could you show it? We don't have a large enough population who've been exposed to prolonged periods of life in space. My own guess is, this is someone with a long-term mental pathology which developed, like a kind of psychological cancer, to the point where it began to override her control system. People with mental illness tend to get worse over the course of time, not better, if no one is treating them...


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## Makalakumu (Feb 7, 2007)

This sort of thing doesn't surprise me.  The Greeks were onto this sort of thing thousands of years ago.  All of their heros had foibles that eventually did them in.  This woman is no different.  

"No matta how "new age" you get, old age gonna kick yo ***."


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## grydth (Feb 7, 2007)

Now there's 'news' that she had been stalking this woman for months - before she had separated from her husband of 19 years. Maybe when he's done wiping the pie off his face, he can explain it to the three children. Who cares about those 4 people, though?

Plenty of people who've never been on a plane, let alone a space shuttle, engage in this behavior. I watched 3 middle aged friends tear themselves and their friendship apart over a guy that was a complete dirt bag..... but he was a special catch, one told me, because he was with the CIA! She wouldn't listen when we tried to tell her the CIA didn't assign many of its top agents to seedy bars in North Syracuse. 

Space happy? No. Middle age crazy compounded by fear of being alone. Hits high fliers and ground pounders alike. Sad.


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## qi-tah (Feb 22, 2007)

Quote:
But police said Nowak intended to kill Shipman, 30, when she bought a knife, BB Gun, and other supplies, got in her car in Houston, and made the 12-hour drive to Orlando, wearing diapers so she would not have to stop along the way. 
But that's just silly! Wouldn't she have to stop to refill her car anyway? Or don't they have toilets in petrol stations in America?

What's sad i guess is that i found the whole diaper angle to be the most bizarre thing about this whole mess. The cruelty that we continue to perpetuate on each other has ceased to surprise me.


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## grydth (Feb 22, 2007)

Do you Aussies realize just how disgusting American public restrooms can be? :barf:


Me, I kind of liked the idea of putting a GPS bracelet..... on an astronaut.:ultracool


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## exile (Feb 22, 2007)

grydth said:


> Me, I kind of liked the idea of putting a GPS bracelet..... on an astronaut.:ultracool



:lol:

You have a very accurate sense of irony, grydth!


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