ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- An
astronaut has been charged with
attempted murder after a bizarre trip in which police said she drove 900 miles
(1,500 kilometers) while wearing a diaper to avoid bathroom breaks, donned a
trench coast and wig, and armed hers
Lisa Nowak, 43, a married mother of three who
flew on a space shuttle in July, was charged Tuesday, accused of hatching the
extraordinary plot to kidnap Colleen Shipman, who she believed was romantically
involved with astronaut William Oefelein.
Specifically, police said,
Nowak confronted Shipman, who was in her car at the Orlando airport, and
sprayed something at her, possibly pepper spray.
At first the astronaut was
charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts. Then prosecutors
upped the charge to attempted murder, basing it on the weapons and other
items they said they had found with Nowak or in her car: pepper spray, a BB-gun,
a new steel mallet, knife and rubber tubing.
Nowak was released from
jail on $25,500 (euro19,700) bail and ordered to wear a monitoring device.
Her lawyer, Donald
Lykkebak, took issue with the most serious charges.
"In the imaginations of the
police officers, they extend these facts out into areas where the facts can't
be supported,'' Lykkebak said.
NASA
put Nowak [image]
on a 30-day leave and removed her from mission duties. Agency spokesman John
Ira Petty at Johnson Space Center in Houston said he was concerned about the
people involved and their families. But, he added, "We try not to concern
ourselves with our employees' personal lives.''
The details of the
relationships of all three were unclear. Nowak and Oefelein, who both live in
the Houston area, had trained together as astronauts, but never flew into space
together. Shipman, 30, works at Patrick Air Force Base near Kennedy Space Center.
Earlier, Nowak was quoted
by police as saying she and Oefelein had something "more than a working relationship
but less than a romantic relationship.''
Neither Oefelein nor
Shipman could be reached for comment Tuesday, nor could Nowak's husband be
found.
But police found a letter
in Nowak's car that "indicated how much Mrs. Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein,'' the arrest
affidavit said. And Nowak had copies of e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein.
Accustomed to wearing
astronaut diapers during the space shuttle's launch and return to Earth, Nowak
wore them on the drive to Orlando so she would not have to make bathroom stops,
police said.
There, according to police,
Nowak donned a wig and trench coat, boarded an airport shuttle bus with Shipman
and followed her to her car. Then, crying, Nowak sprayed a chemical into the
car.
Shipman drove to a parking
lot booth and sought help.
A police affidavit made
public Tuesday said Nowak had "stealthily followed the victim while in disguise
and possessed multiple deadly weapons.''
The affidavit said the
circumstances of the case "create a well-founded fear'' and gave investigators "probable
cause to believe that Mrs. Nowak intended to murder Ms. Shipman.''
Lykkebak said that Nowak
only wanted to talk to Shipman. Asked about the weapons, he said, "You can sit
and speculate all day.''
The judge also ordered
Nowak to stay away from Shipman and to wear an electronic monitoring device
upon returning to her home in Houston.
A vague profile began to
emerge of Nowak, who graduated from high school in Maryland in 1981 and the
U.S. Naval Academy in 1985. She has won various Navy service awards.
In a September interview
with Ladies' Home Journal, Nowak said her husband, Richard, "works in Mission
Control, so he's part of the whole space business, too. And supportive also.''
On Tuesday, a Houston neighbor, Bryan Lam, told The Associated Press that in November he heard the
sounds of dishes being thrown inside the house and the police came.
"I've seen them arguing
before,'' he said.
Nowak, in a NASA interview
last year, before her
mission aboard Discovery, as well as in an interview with ABC News,
spoke about the strain her career placed on her family. She has twin 5-year-old
girls and a son who is 14 or 15.
"It's a sacrifice for our
own personal time and our families and the people around us,'' she said in the
NASA interview. "But I do think it's worth it because if you don't explore and
take risks and go do all these things they everything will stay the same.''
In an in-flight news
conference aboard Discovery last summer, she talked about waiting nearly 10
years for her first space flight. "It's been a long wait, but it's worth the
wait,'' she said.
NASA astronauts often have
nicknames, at least among their crewmates and Mission Control. Aboard Discovery
last July, Nowak
and crewmate Stephanie Wilson were known as "the Robochicks'' [image]
because they operated the shuttle's robotic arm that checked the spacecraft for
damage.
A smiling, put-together
woman in her NASA photos, Nowak's police mug shot showed a fatigued, haggard face
with scraggly hair [image].
Oefelein, a 41-year-old
Navy commander nicknamed "Billy-O'' by his comrades, trained with Nowak but
never flew with her. He piloted
a Discovery mission in December to the space station where
astronauts rewired the outpost, installed a new $11 million (euro8.5 million)
section and dropped off a new American crew member.
Oefelein is unmarried but
has two children. He began his aviation career as a teenager, flying
floatplanes in Alaska.
The Orlando Sentinel
reported Shipman is an engineer assigned to the 45th Launch Support Squadron at
Patrick air base, and a Federal Aviation Administration pilot directory
indicates she is certified as a student pilot.
Chief astronaut Steve
Lindsey, who flew with Nowak to the space station last July aboard
Discovery, and fellow astronaut Chris
Ferguson attended Monday's court hearing.
"Our primary concern is her
health and well-being and that she get through this,'' Lindsey told reporters
afterward.
Ferguson said he was "perplexed'' by Nowak's
alleged actions.
NASA spokeswoman Nicole
Cloutier-Lemasters said shuttle crews that fly for two-week stints do not go
through psychiatric screenings. She said crews assigned to the space station
are screened before, during and after missions.
NASA will not conduct an
investigation, Cloutier-Lemasters said.
At least one retired
astronaut, Jerry Linenger, said the space agency should review its
psychological screening process. With NASA talking about a 2 1/2-year trip to
Mars, it would be dangerous for someone to "snap like this'' during the
mission, he said.
"An astronaut is probably
the most studied human being by the time you go through your testing, your
training,'' Linenger said. "I think there's still a lot of unknowns out
there.''
AP National Writer Erin
McClam reported from New York for this story. AP writers Malcolm Ritter in New
York, Seth Borenstein in Washington, Rasha Madkour in Houston, Kelli Kennedy in
Miami and Jim Ellis in Cape Canaveral contributed to this report.
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