Lost In Space
I can imagine the jokes that will be used by Jay, David and Conan on the late night talk shows, about female astronauts and PMS. The bizarre incident of Captain Lisa Nowak and her diaper-wearing 900-mile drive to “talk” with a perceived romantic rival, Captain Colleen Shipman, over fellow astronaut Cmdr. William A. Oefelein, is definitely out of this world wacky. Lisa brought will her for this little chat, according to the New York Times, “… a compressed air pistol, a steel mallet, a knife, pepper spray, four feet of rubber tubing, latex gloves and garbage bags.”
My first thought was how could someone this unstable pass the psychological testing that is supposed to weed-out whackos from the space program? Well, as it turns out, according to Nick Kanas, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied astronaut psychology, the screening occurs only at the very beginning of the process. “We can screen out very serious stuff, but we can’t always predict the future,” Professor Kanas told the New York Times, and “people change over time.”
Ya think?
The era when astronauts were well known heroes has long since passed. Now Nowak has put the space program on the front burner of our thoughts and front pages of newspapers in a bad light. Even worse for those of us who once fought for the rights of women to break glass ceilings, she has send the progress of women in jobs once restricted to men back to the Stone Age.
I am trying to ready myself for the “raging hormone” jokes that will pepper the late night airwaves for the next few days.
Thanks a lot, Captain Nowak.