Newsmaker

Astronaut suffered 'mental anguish'

(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-08 08:56

Clark expressed empathy with Richard Nowak, who separated from his wife a few weeks ago after 19 years of marriage.

NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak is shown at left in a March 2005 photo provided by NASA, and at right in a Feb. 2007 photo provided by the Orange County, Fla. Sheriff's Department. [AP]

"He was a real low-key, go-with-the flow, unobtrusive person," Clark said. "You almost have to be to survive in the realm. ... It was hard on our marriage to have my wife gone all the time, and eventually have her career surpass mine."

Lisa Nowak grew up in Rockville, Md., where she was co-valedictorian and member of the track team in high school. After graduating from the Naval Academy, she received a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, flew as a test pilot in the mid-1990s while caring for an infant son, and became a full-fledged astronaut in 1998.

"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," she said in a recent interview with Ladies Home Journal.

Last July, in the climax of her career, she flew on the space shuttle Discovery, helping operate its robotic arm and winning praise for her performance.

However, there were signs of turmoil in her life as she tried to balance her career with raising a teenage son and 5-year-old twin girls.

In November, a neighbor reported hearing the sounds of dishes being thrown inside Nowak's Houston home. And she had begun to form a relationship with William Oefelein, a fellow astronaut and father of two whose own marriage ended in divorce in 2005.

Nowak told police Monday that the relationship was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship."

Charlene Davis, the mother of Oefelein's ex-wife, Michaella, said Wednesday that Nowak -- although friends with Oefelein for years -- had nothing to do with his marriage breakup.

"I think there were a lot of bad choices being made, and Lisa just made a horrible one," Davis said in a telephone interview. "And I just feel sorry for her. What the hell was she thinking?"

The final unraveling came this week when police arrested Nowak for allegedly trying to kidnap Colleen Shipman, an Air Force captain from Florida whom she believed was her rival for Oefelein's affections.

Police charged Nowak with attempting to murder Shipman based on weapons and other items found with Nowak or in her car: pepper spray, a BB-gun, a new steel mallet, knife and rubber tubing.

Those who know Nowak away from the high-pressure atmosphere of NASA were stunned.

"I was very surprised... She always seemed very normal to me," said Candis Silva, who lives three houses down from the Nowaks. "She was a good role model for our daughters."

Thomas Nagy, a Palo Alto, Calif., psychologist who has studied the stresses facing dual-career couples, hesitated to offer any specific diagnosis of Nowak, but said such seemingly desperate acts could result from a chronic personality disorder or from a period of high stress that clouds one's judgment.

"When people are in that role of trying to do everything to the Nth degree, they don't get enough sleep, they don't do enough activities that are fun, they don't get enough exercise," he said.

"If we ignore those because we're trying to do it all, we pay a price -- more anxiety, more depression."

Jon Clark expressed hope that Americans would empathize with Nowak, rather than condemning her.

"Obviously, she had some things that didn't go well," he said. "Any of us could be there. All of us have a dark side."