The
bizarre arrest of NASA
astronaut Lisa
Nowak Monday cast in sharp relief the guidelines governing civilian and
military spaceflyers.
Police arrested Nowak,
a U.S. Navy captain and mother of three, in Orlando, Florida early
Monday, where she is charged with the attempted kidnapping of a romantic rival
for the affections of NASA
space shuttle pilot William Oefelein. Nowak also faces a charge of attempted
first-degree murder based on items recovered by police at the time of her
arrest, Orlando police said
Tuesday.
Both
Nowak and Oefelein, a Navy Commander, are active U.S. Navy personnel attached
to NASA, a civilian space agency overseen by the U.S.
government. Each of those government organizations has its own guidelines for
appropriate and lawful work-related behavior.
“We
don’t believe that anyone has ever been charged with a felony as an
active duty astronaut,” Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesperson at the
agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters,
told SPACE.com. “I think this is the first time that’s
happened.”
NASA’s
behavioral guidelines align with standard government rules. Active U.S.
military personnel, meanwhile, are subject to the Uniform Military Code of
Justice, which governs fraternization, conduct unbecoming an officer, and other
regulations.
“They
are both Naval officers and we have to defer to the Navy on what their code of
conduct is,” Beutel said. “That’s slightly different than say
a typical civil servant.”
NASA
has specific codes of astronaut
conduct for spaceflyers living and working aboard the International Space
Station (ISS), but on Earth the agency’s reach is purposely limited to
their professional activities.
“There
are rules as far as being government employees, but NASA doesn’t monitor
or restrict the private lives of employees,” NASA spokesperson Kylie
Clem, of the agency’s Johnson
Space
Center
in Houston, told SPACE.com,
adding that the guidelines are currently expected to remain unchanged.
Private
fraternization among astronauts is not prohibited, NASA officials said.
“Astronauts
dated each other, astronaut married each other, there has been a married couple
that flew on the same shuttle mission,” said astronaut biographer Michael
Cassutt, referring to the 1992 flight of then-married astronauts Mark Lee and
Jan Davis aboard Endeavour during NASA’s STS-47 mission. “The
guidelines are unspoken, or if they're spoken they’re general.
They’re grown ups, and you’re expected to behave like grown ups.”
“They
are both Naval officers and we have to defer to the Navy on what their code of
conduct is,” Beutel said. “That’s slightly different than say
a typical civil servant.”
Some
Navy officials believe any additional charges for Nowak beyond the current
civil allegations would likely await the outcome of the civil proceedings, one
U.S. Navy official said.
According
to police and wire reports, the 43-year-old Nowak believed another woman
Colleen Shipman was romantically involved with Oefelein, who is unmarried and a
father of two. Nowak then drove 900 miles (1,448 kilometers) from her Houston home to Orlando
to confront Shipman early Monday, according to her arrest affidavit.
Nowak
served
as a robotic arm operator during NASA’s
STS-121 shuttle mission in July 2006, a spaceflight that marked the space
agency’s return to orbiter flight. Oefelein piloted
the space shuttle Discovery’s STS-116
shuttle mission in December 2006.
According
to George
Abbey, the former Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, home to
the Astronaut Corps, instances of fraternization did occur but no more or less
than in any other large private sector organization. Abbey was JSC director
from 1996 to 2001, and had worked with NASA since 1967. A controversial figure
in some quarters, Abbey was known for his devotion to the astronaut corps.
Though
not aware of all the details surrounding the Nowak incident, Abbey said that
rules and procedures need to be in place so that NASA management can intercede
before things get out of hand.
“Yes,
we had instances in the past,” said Abbey. “Anytime you have a
large number of people working for you, you have to be sensitive to these kinds
of situations and not let the situation get to where this situation has got.
But remember, something like this just doesn’t happen overnight. I would
be surprised that this happened.”
Clem
said Steven
Lindsey, NASA’s chief astronaut in the Astronaut Office, and shuttle
pilot Chris
Ferguson are currently with Nowak in Florida.
Ferguson is a senior
military astronaut within NASA’s Astronaut Corps, she added.
“We’re
stunned,” Clem said.
advertisement
