Lisa Nowak

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.090 --> 00:00:05.080
In February 2007, NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak made headlines around
2
00:00:05.089 --> 00:00:09.359
the world after driving nearly 900 miles from Houston, Texas
3
00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:14.320
to Orlando, Florida, to confront another woman, allegedly wearing a
4
00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:16.910
diaper so she wouldn't have to stop along the way.
5
00:00:17.769 --> 00:00:20.469
Until that pivotal point, Lisa had been known for her
6
00:00:20.510 --> 00:00:25.850
remarkable accomplishments. She was a Naval Academy graduate, a decorated
7
00:00:25.929 --> 00:00:30.600
naval officer, test pilot, mother of three, and an astronaut
8
00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:33.840
who had traveled more than 5 million miles aboard the
9
00:00:33.899 --> 00:00:38.280
space shuttle Discovery. But just months after returning from space,
10
00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:43.579
Visa was arrested at Orlando International Airport for stalking and
11
00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:48.359
attempted kidnapping. How did one of NASA's most accomplished astronauts
12
00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:49.759
end up there?
13
00:00:50.380 --> 00:00:50.859
I'm Rich.
14
00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:51.740
And I'm Tina.
15
00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:55.520
Welcome to Love, Marry, Kill. Just the Facts.
16
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:12.140
I was looking for a case that might be a
17
00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:15.060
little lighter this week, so that's how we ended up
18
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:16.109
with Lisa Nowak.
19
00:01:16.170 --> 00:01:17.329
I'm interested to hear the story.
20
00:01:18.489 --> 00:01:21.459
In Houston, Texas, on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007, Lisa Nowak, 43,
21
00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:27.849
awoke after a restless night. She had the whole weekend
22
00:01:27.870 --> 00:01:31.989
in front of her, but felt uneasy, anxious. Her children,
23
00:01:32.349 --> 00:01:35.989
twin 5-year-old girls and a 14-year-old son, were with her
24
00:01:36.049 --> 00:01:39.969
estranged husband for the weekend, giving her time, too much
25
00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:43.730
time really, to think about and obsess over a situation
26
00:01:43.769 --> 00:01:47.579
in her life that had, in her mind, become untenable.
27
00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:50.879
Her husband had moved out about six weeks earlier. It
28
00:01:51.579 --> 00:01:55.280
was a time of change and self-reflection. Lisa lived in
29
00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:58.049
a comfortable red brick house in a neighborhood full of
30
00:01:58.170 --> 00:02:02.290
other NASA families. Lisa was an astronaut who worked at
31
00:02:02.329 --> 00:02:06.709
the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Just seven months earlier,
32
00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:10.659
Lisa's lifelong dream of entering space had been realized aboard
33
00:02:10.689 --> 00:02:15.020
the space shuttle Discovery with six other astronauts. One of
34
00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:17.719
the very few people fortunate enough to see the Earth
35
00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:21.900
from above its atmosphere. After decades of hard work, having
36
00:02:21.939 --> 00:02:25.960
to be the best, excelling with every new challenge, she
37
00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:30.560
was lost, spiraling, unsure of who she was, and struggling
38
00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:35.659
to find meaning and connection. Lisa's friend, Dr. Laurel Clark,
39
00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:39.960
had died aboard the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003,
40
00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:45.930
along with six other astronauts. Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool,
41
00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:52.409
Payload Commander Michael Anderson, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla and David Brown,
42
00:02:52.969 --> 00:02:57.419
and payload specialist Ilan Rahman. During Columbia's launch, a piece
43
00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:00.780
of insulating foam had broken away from the external fuel
44
00:03:00.819 --> 00:03:04.300
tank and damaged the shuttle's left wing. The impact of
45
00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:08.330
the missing foam had been underestimated. Sixteen days later, as
46
00:03:08.389 --> 00:03:13.289
Columbia re-entered Earth's atmosphere, superheated gases penetrated the damaged wing,
47
00:03:14.050 --> 00:03:17.449
causing the shuttle to break apart over Texas. The fourth
48
00:03:17.490 --> 00:03:21.509
anniversary of the disaster had just passed, and anniversaries were
49
00:03:21.590 --> 00:03:24.409
hard for Lisa. Laurel was one of her best friends
50
00:03:24.469 --> 00:03:26.770
at NASA and the only woman she had a close
51
00:03:26.810 --> 00:03:31.180
friendship with. After Laurel's death, Lisa had inherited eight of
52
00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:37.060
her treasured African violet plants. She lovingly propagated over 400 seedlings,
53
00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:41.919
an indication of both Lisa's loyalty and intensity. She often
54
00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:45.449
gave the plants as gifts to her co-workers. Lisa felt
55
00:03:45.509 --> 00:03:48.370
as if the seedlings were keeping a part of Laurel alive,
56
00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:51.729
but recently she had been distracted and many of the
57
00:03:51.770 --> 00:03:56.159
little plants were browned and wilted from neglect. A few
58
00:03:56.180 --> 00:04:00.180
weeks earlier, Bill Opheline, a fellow astronaut that she'd been
59
00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:02.360
seeing for a couple of years on the down low,
60
00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:06.199
told her that he wanted to cool things off. That
61
00:04:06.259 --> 00:04:09.610
wasn't what Lisa wanted. Bill was seeing another woman and
62
00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:14.319
things were getting serious. Jealousy consumed Lisa. She thought of
63
00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:17.600
little else. She needed to see this woman face to
64
00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:21.339
face to confront her. She was single-minded in her mission.
65
00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.949
Lisa printed directions from MapQuest from Houston to Orlando, Florida,
66
00:04:26.129 --> 00:04:31.829
where the other woman lived. 13 hours, 48 minutes, 963 miles.
67
00:04:32.550 --> 00:04:34.810
Then Lisa went to a sporting goods store where she
68
00:04:34.850 --> 00:04:39.189
purchased pepper spray, a BB gun, and pellets. She paid
69
00:04:39.230 --> 00:04:43.560
cash for the items. Lisa was an excellent planner. When
70
00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:46.240
she had everything she needed, she hit the road. She
71
00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:50.319
had a mission, not one sanctioned by NASA, but soon they,
72
00:04:50.399 --> 00:04:52.529
along with the rest of the world, would see Lisa's
73
00:04:52.569 --> 00:04:56.230
name splashed across the front page of every newspaper in
74
00:04:56.269 --> 00:04:59.730
the country. But not because she'd completed another mission to space.
75
00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:03.430
This trip was for a much darker, personal reason.
76
00:05:04.189 --> 00:05:06.389
I'm excited to hear this story because all I know
77
00:05:06.439 --> 00:05:08.540
of it is basically what you said up front, that
78
00:05:08.579 --> 00:05:10.689
she drove all this way with a diaper on.
79
00:05:10.889 --> 00:05:14.069
Right, that was the headline. That's the headline that everyone remembers.
80
00:05:15.310 --> 00:05:18.209
The space race between the United States and Soviet Union
81
00:05:18.350 --> 00:05:21.490
exploded in the early 1960s at the height of the
82
00:05:21.550 --> 00:05:27.139
Cold War. Dr. William Randolph Lovelace, who had helped develop
83
00:05:27.180 --> 00:05:31.439
the medical tests used to select NASA's first astronauts, wondered
84
00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:35.639
whether women might be equally suited for spaceflight. He began
85
00:05:35.699 --> 00:05:40.819
testing accomplished female pilots, starting with Jerry Cobb. and eventually
86
00:05:40.990 --> 00:05:44.129
put 13 women through many of the same grueling physical
87
00:05:44.689 --> 00:05:49.209
and psychological tests given to male astronauts. The women became
88
00:05:49.269 --> 00:05:54.029
known as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, or FLATs. Lovelace
89
00:05:54.089 --> 00:05:58.050
was impressed, declaring that certain qualities of the female space
90
00:05:58.110 --> 00:06:03.069
pilot are preferable to those of her male colleagues. But
91
00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:07.360
the privately funded program was abruptly canceled. NASA had no
92
00:06:07.399 --> 00:06:10.199
plans to send women into space. and many within the
93
00:06:10.379 --> 00:06:14.730
overwhelmingly male space program believed they simply didn't belong there.
94
00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:21.790
In 1963, the Soviet Union sent cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova into space,
95
00:06:22.670 --> 00:06:25.509
making her the first woman in space and handing the
96
00:06:25.569 --> 00:06:29.310
Soviets a highly visible victory in the space race. The
97
00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:32.509
United States would take another 20 years to follow.
98
00:06:33.509 --> 00:06:37.209
A month before Valentina was launched into space, Lisa Marie
99
00:06:37.250 --> 00:06:41.339
Caputo was born to Alfredo and Jane in Rockville, Maryland,
100
00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:46.279
about 20 miles outside Washington, D.C. Jane worked as a
101
00:06:46.300 --> 00:06:50.839
biologist and Alfredo as a computer consultant. Lisa had two
102
00:06:50.899 --> 00:06:55.079
younger sisters, Andrea and Marissa. When Lisa was six years
103
00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:59.600
old in the summer of 1969, she watched Neil Armstrong's
104
00:06:59.689 --> 00:07:03.860
first moonwalk. His famous words, that's one small step for
105
00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:07.399
a man, one giant leap for mankind, made a big
106
00:07:07.459 --> 00:07:11.160
impression on her. She was determined to follow in his steps.
107
00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:15.889
Her sister Andrea later said Lisa was, quote, the perfect child,
108
00:07:15.990 --> 00:07:21.110
but prudish, generally solitary, and always involved in schoolwork or projects.
109
00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:25.120
She added that Lisa had difficulty picking up on social cues.
110
00:07:26.060 --> 00:07:29.939
Lisa was a stellar student, dedicated to her studies, excelling
111
00:07:29.980 --> 00:07:33.240
in the classroom, but also on the sports field, where
112
00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:35.970
she ran for the track team and played field hockey.
113
00:07:36.850 --> 00:07:40.430
In the spring of 1981, Lisa was named Student Athlete
114
00:07:40.470 --> 00:07:44.629
of the Year. She was involved with student government, competed
115
00:07:44.709 --> 00:07:46.850
on the math team, and was a member of the
116
00:07:46.889 --> 00:07:51.370
French Honor Society. Her senior quote was, She graduated as
117
00:07:51.430 --> 00:07:53.490
co-valedictorian from C.W. Woodward High School in 1981. She made
118
00:07:53.509 --> 00:07:55.370
it clear that she wanted to join NASA. When told
119
00:07:55.569 --> 00:07:59.329
that women couldn't be astronauts, she was undeterred. Lisa knew
120
00:07:59.410 --> 00:08:01.490
that in 1978, of the 35 applicants accepted into NASA,
121
00:08:01.569 --> 00:08:22.850
six were women. Times were changing. Lisa was accepted to
122
00:08:22.889 --> 00:08:27.680
Brown University and the United States Naval Academy, both ultra-selective.
123
00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:32.100
She wanted to attend Brown and have the typical college experience,
124
00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:35.820
but she knew entering the Naval Academy would increase her
125
00:08:35.980 --> 00:08:39.740
odds of becoming an astronaut. The Naval Academy is an
126
00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:45.000
extraordinarily regimented environment where, as a freshman or plebe, nearly
127
00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:49.039
every aspect of your day was controlled. The Naval Academy
128
00:08:49.139 --> 00:08:52.350
required a uniform at all times and women's hair to
129
00:08:52.389 --> 00:08:55.710
be closely cropped. Plebes were at the very bottom of
130
00:08:55.750 --> 00:09:00.250
the Naval Academy hierarchy and were expected to move, eat, speak,
131
00:09:00.649 --> 00:09:04.549
and even sit according to strict rules. At meals, they
132
00:09:04.620 --> 00:09:08.240
sat erect with their heads up and eyes forward, never
133
00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:11.740
allowing their backs to make contact with the chair. They
134
00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:15.759
were expected to address upperclassmen as sir or ma'am and
135
00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:19.419
memorize extensive Navy history, which they could be called upon
136
00:09:19.490 --> 00:09:23.110
to recite at any time. Even walking through campus in
137
00:09:23.149 --> 00:09:26.889
a casual manner was not allowed. Plebes were expected to
138
00:09:26.950 --> 00:09:31.090
move at a quick pace, known as chopping. The system
139
00:09:31.129 --> 00:09:35.629
was intentionally demanding. In addition to a rigorous academic schedule,
140
00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:42.970
plebes faced military training, physical conditioning, inspections, memorization, and constant
141
00:09:43.029 --> 00:09:47.690
scrutiny from upperclassmen. There was little opportunity to relax or
142
00:09:47.789 --> 00:09:51.690
simply blend into the background. The experience was designed to
143
00:09:51.730 --> 00:09:55.929
teach discipline, attention to detail, and the ability to perform
144
00:09:55.990 --> 00:10:01.639
under pressure, requiring considerable physical and mental endurance. When Lisa
145
00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:05.490
entered the Academy in July 1981, women had been admitted
146
00:10:05.570 --> 00:10:09.549
for only five years, and there was still considerable resistance
147
00:10:09.610 --> 00:10:13.409
to their presence. Many questioned what, if anything, they could
148
00:10:13.470 --> 00:10:18.169
contribute to the program. By graduation in 1985, Lisa was
149
00:10:18.309 --> 00:10:22.389
one of only 75 women among the 1,032 members of
150
00:10:22.429 --> 00:10:26.669
the graduating class. Women weren't the only group who struggled
151
00:10:26.710 --> 00:10:29.690
for a place at the Naval Academy. Black men had
152
00:10:29.730 --> 00:10:32.450
been admitted in small numbers for more than a century.
153
00:10:32.470 --> 00:10:38.129
They faced intense racism, hazing, and hostility. The first black
154
00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:40.529
midshipmen entered in 1872, but it wasn't until 1949 that
155
00:10:43.460 --> 00:10:46.519
that Wesley Brown became the first black man to graduate.
156
00:10:47.139 --> 00:10:50.559
By the time Lisa arrived in 1981, the Academy was
157
00:10:50.620 --> 00:10:54.919
making a concerted effort to recruit more minority students, but
158
00:10:54.990 --> 00:10:59.370
its student body remained overwhelmingly white and male. The intent
159
00:10:59.409 --> 00:11:01.629
of the program was to test the strength of the
160
00:11:01.690 --> 00:11:05.289
plebes every step of the way. Only the strongest and
161
00:11:05.350 --> 00:11:09.190
most worthy candidates would survive. They were expected to be
162
00:11:09.250 --> 00:11:14.940
near perfect, always presentable, never late. Their day started at 6.30 a.m.
163
00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:18.679
and didn't end until 6.30 p.m. The day ended with
164
00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:23.019
dinner and then study time. The required 18-credit course load
165
00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:27.110
was overwhelming, but each passing year at the Academy, restrictions
166
00:11:27.149 --> 00:11:30.690
were loosened and life became a little easier. In the
167
00:11:30.750 --> 00:11:34.860
summer of 1983, Lisa stood proudly in Florida to see
168
00:11:34.889 --> 00:11:39.320
the first American woman, Dr. Sally Ride, be launched into space.
169
00:11:40.090 --> 00:11:42.129
Do you think you would be a worthy candidate at
170
00:11:42.169 --> 00:11:43.309
the Naval Academy?
171
00:11:43.330 --> 00:11:44.799
I don't think I could cut it.
172
00:11:45.250 --> 00:11:46.529
Oh, I absolutely could not.
173
00:11:46.649 --> 00:11:50.000
It just seems so intense, yeah. During her third year
174
00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:53.500
at the Academy, Lisa met her future husband, Rich Nowak.
175
00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:59.019
President Ronald Reagan delivered the commencement address to Lisa's graduating class.
176
00:11:59.879 --> 00:12:03.080
After surviving such a grueling four years, Lisa walked a
177
00:12:03.100 --> 00:12:07.700
little taller. A Naval Academy degree opened an extraordinary number
178
00:12:07.740 --> 00:12:11.990
of doors, but her goal remained clear. to become an astronaut.
179
00:12:12.750 --> 00:12:15.230
Rich went to Pensacola to begin his own career with
180
00:12:15.269 --> 00:12:18.659
the Navy, while Lisa's ambitions took her in another direction.
181
00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:23.379
She accepted a position at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,
182
00:12:23.960 --> 00:12:28.159
providing engineering support for the shuttle training aircraft. She had
183
00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:30.519
a front row seat while more and more women were
184
00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:34.740
being launched into space. After six months at Johnson, Lisa
185
00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:37.799
reported to flight school at the United States Naval Air
186
00:12:37.860 --> 00:12:41.970
Station Pensacola. the cradle of naval aviation on the Gulf
187
00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:45.250
Coast of Florida, she was honing in on making her
188
00:12:45.309 --> 00:12:49.009
dream a reality. Earning a spot in flight school was
189
00:12:49.070 --> 00:12:53.340
difficult for anyone, but women faced an additional hurdle. Even
190
00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:57.360
after proving they were capable of becoming Navy pilots, federal
191
00:12:57.419 --> 00:13:02.100
law prohibited women from flying combat missions, effectively closing off
192
00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:07.230
many assignments and opportunities for advancement. The restriction also fueled
193
00:13:07.269 --> 00:13:11.379
resentment among some male officers, who questioned why women were
194
00:13:11.399 --> 00:13:15.139
being given coveted flight school positions when they were barred
195
00:13:15.179 --> 00:13:18.240
from many of the jobs that followed. It was one
196
00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:20.720
hurdle after another for a woman who wanted to be
197
00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:23.970
an astronaut. It's mind-boggling to me that this was the
198
00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.250
situation really not that long ago. It doesn't feel like
199
00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:28.529
that long ago to me anyway.
200
00:13:28.549 --> 00:13:31.169
Yeah, we've made a lot of progress, but there's still
201
00:13:31.230 --> 00:13:33.029
a lot of progress yet to be made. Absolutely.
202
00:13:33.070 --> 00:13:38.970
Absolutely. In 1986, NASA chose Krista McAuliffe, 37, a high
203
00:13:39.009 --> 00:13:43.029
school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, from more
204
00:13:43.070 --> 00:13:47.019
than 11,000 applicants, to be the first teacher in space.
205
00:13:47.779 --> 00:13:50.679
Once in orbit, Krista planned to teach two lessons from
206
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.840
the shuttle that would be broadcast to students across the country.
207
00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:57.120
The day of the launch was an unusually cold one
208
00:13:57.159 --> 00:14:01.590
in Florida, 38 degrees and windy, the coldest launch on record.
209
00:14:02.259 --> 00:14:05.370
The extreme weather conditions caused a rubber seal called an
210
00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:09.330
O-ring in one of Challenger's rocket boosters to become stiff
211
00:14:09.870 --> 00:14:14.250
and fail to seal properly. Hot gases escaped through the opening,
212
00:14:14.710 --> 00:14:19.580
damaging the shuttle's external fuel tank and supporting structure. Just
213
00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:24.860
73 seconds after liftoff, Challenger disintegrated, killing Krista McAuliffe and
214
00:14:24.899 --> 00:14:28.299
the six other crew members on board. In the years
215
00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:32.980
preceding the Challenger disaster, shuttle launches had become routine, predictable,
216
00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:36.399
and safe. The loss of the Challenger was a huge
217
00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:40.519
blow and setback to NASA, but President Ronald Reagan vowed
218
00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:44.490
to continue his support of the program. Dr. Sally Ride
219
00:14:44.539 --> 00:14:47.710
reminded the public that each astronaut accepts the risk of
220
00:14:47.769 --> 00:14:51.450
death when they accept a mission. Quote, There are risks
221
00:14:51.509 --> 00:14:54.690
associated with flight. That was true in the early days
222
00:14:54.750 --> 00:14:58.350
of the space program, and it's still true today. Rocket
223
00:14:58.409 --> 00:15:01.570
technology is risky, and those risks are something that every
224
00:15:01.710 --> 00:15:05.169
astronaut has to internally come to grips with and be
225
00:15:05.210 --> 00:15:09.409
willing to accept. NASA grounded the remaining shuttle fleet until
226
00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:13.720
the Challenger incident was thoroughly investigated. It took nearly three
227
00:15:13.750 --> 00:15:19.379
years and $ 2. 5 billion before NASA launched Discovery successfully.
228
00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:23.059
I think I was in school watching the Challenger live
229
00:15:23.259 --> 00:15:26.480
when it disintegrated. which was pretty shocking.
230
00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:28.840
Yeah, I know. It was a really shocking thing. I
231
00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:31.600
think a lot of people were watching live, and yeah,
232
00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:35.120
schools had it on because here was this teacher going
233
00:15:35.179 --> 00:15:38.120
to space. So yeah, it was really a major tragedy.
234
00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:44.379
Lisa Nowak was undeterred. She completed and excelled in flight training,
235
00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:47.740
first mastering the simulators and then taking to the air.
236
00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:51.259
She earned her wings as a naval flight officer, a
237
00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:55.509
highly trained member of the flight crew, responsible for navigation,
238
00:15:55.919 --> 00:16:01.539
weapons systems, communications, and other complex operations, rather than physically
239
00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:05.419
piloting the aircraft, it was another significant step toward her
240
00:16:05.570 --> 00:16:09.470
ultimate goal of becoming an astronaut. We'll be back after
241
00:16:09.509 --> 00:16:09.830
a break.
242
00:16:12.929 --> 00:16:20.840
Music Lisa and Rich were married on April 9, 1988,
243
00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:25.460
in Annapolis, Maryland, in a traditional Navy wedding, complete with
244
00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:29.679
the ceremonial Arch of Swords. For most of their relationship,
245
00:16:29.700 --> 00:16:32.970
they'd been separated by hundreds of miles, both pursuing their
246
00:16:33.009 --> 00:16:38.009
personal goals. Lisa and Rich settled in Oxnard, California, where
247
00:16:38.070 --> 00:16:44.480
she joined Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 34. Lisa flew aboard
248
00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:50.279
the EA-6B Prowler during training missions operating the aircraft's sophisticated
249
00:16:50.539 --> 00:16:55.519
electronic warfare systems. She excelled in the role, eventually qualifying
250
00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:59.710
as a mission commander and electronic warfare lead, positions that
251
00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:03.830
placed her in charge of coordinating complex mission operations and
252
00:17:03.889 --> 00:17:09.930
identifying and disrupting enemy radar and communication systems. In 1990,
253
00:17:09.930 --> 00:17:12.230
the couple was on the move again when Lisa enrolled
254
00:17:12.269 --> 00:17:17.500
in postgraduate naval school in Monterey, California. Soon the Berlin
255
00:17:17.539 --> 00:17:21.079
Wall fell and the Cold War was over, also ending
256
00:17:21.099 --> 00:17:26.180
the space race. In February 1992, the Nowaks welcomed their
257
00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:30.539
first child, a son they named Alexander. A month later,
258
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.799
Lisa graduated with a Master's of Science degree in aeronautical engineering,
259
00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:39.279
followed by an engineering degree in aeronautics and astronautics in
260
00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:43.269
the fall. In 1992, the Navy transferred Lisa to Naval
261
00:17:43.369 --> 00:17:47.769
Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, a major center for
262
00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:52.549
testing new aircraft and aviation technology. The following year, after
263
00:17:52.650 --> 00:17:56.000
applying for the sixth time, she was selected for the
264
00:17:56.019 --> 00:18:00.579
prestigious U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. She logged over 1,500
265
00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:05.960
hours on over 30 aircraft. After graduating, Lisa continued working
266
00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:08.660
with some of the Navy's most advanced aircraft and also
267
00:18:08.740 --> 00:18:13.089
trained incoming pilots. It was another major accomplishment and an
268
00:18:13.150 --> 00:18:17.390
important addition to the resume she'd been carefully building toward
269
00:18:17.410 --> 00:18:21.880
her ultimate goal of becoming an astronaut. On February 3, 1995,
270
00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:26.500
Eileen Collins made history as the first woman to pilot
271
00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:29.819
a space shuttle when Discovery launched on a mission that
272
00:18:29.859 --> 00:18:33.559
included a historic rendezvous with a Russian space station Mir.
273
00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:37.329
It was another sign that things were changing. Roles that
274
00:18:37.369 --> 00:18:41.009
had once been closed off to women were slowly opening, expanding,
275
00:18:41.730 --> 00:18:44.759
what someone like Lisa could imagine for their own future.
276
00:18:44.779 --> 00:18:47.940
I know I went deep into the history, but I
277
00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:51.640
just wanted to highlight how much work goes into being
278
00:18:51.660 --> 00:18:55.059
an astronaut, especially for a woman, because she had to
279
00:18:55.660 --> 00:18:58.619
prove herself a little more. Holy cow.
280
00:18:58.849 --> 00:18:59.640
Yeah, it's amazing.
281
00:18:59.660 --> 00:19:04.930
So many accomplishments. In 1995, NASA opened the application process
282
00:19:04.990 --> 00:19:08.630
for a new class of astronauts. After preparing for this
283
00:19:08.710 --> 00:19:14.049
opportunity for years, Lisa, now 32, thought she was finally ready.
284
00:19:14.710 --> 00:19:19.390
She had an impeccable resume, an aerospace engineering degree, advanced
285
00:19:19.470 --> 00:19:23.950
graduate degrees, extensive flight experience, and she had graduated from
286
00:19:23.990 --> 00:19:27.140
the Naval Test Pilot School. She was one of roughly 3,000
287
00:19:27.140 --> 00:19:31.250
people who applied, all competing academically. for one of the
288
00:19:31.309 --> 00:19:34.569
most coveted jobs in the world. Months of screening and
289
00:19:34.670 --> 00:19:39.400
interviews followed. In April 1996, Lisa finally received the news
290
00:19:39.420 --> 00:19:41.799
that she had been working towards for most of her life.
291
00:19:42.599 --> 00:19:46.470
NASA had selected her as one of the 35 astronaut candidates.
292
00:19:47.230 --> 00:19:52.049
She'd made it. Lisa underwent the psychological screening required of
293
00:19:52.210 --> 00:19:56.710
astronaut candidates. NASA needed people who could remain calm and
294
00:19:56.730 --> 00:20:02.119
dependable under extraordinary pressure. Candidates completed a standard series of
295
00:20:02.180 --> 00:20:06.440
psychological tests followed by interviews with a psychologist and a psychiatrist.
296
00:20:07.380 --> 00:20:10.890
Once accepted into the astronaut corps, however, they received annual
297
00:20:10.930 --> 00:20:15.730
medical exams but were not required to undergo routine follow-up
298
00:20:15.769 --> 00:20:22.650
psychological evaluations unless concerns arose or an astronaut sought help. Lisa, Rich,
299
00:20:22.710 --> 00:20:25.609
and 4-year-old Alex moved to Texas to the Clear Lake
300
00:20:25.670 --> 00:20:30.019
area of Houston near Johnson Space Center. They bought a large,
301
00:20:30.099 --> 00:20:33.759
comfortable home and also purchased a nearby condo as rental property.
302
00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:37.700
Rich left active duty with the Navy, although he continued
303
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:41.160
serving in the Naval Reserve. He took a civilian job
304
00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:46.059
with Barrios Technology, a NASA contractor, and worked as a
305
00:20:46.099 --> 00:20:50.450
flight controller in mission control at Johnson Space Center, helping
306
00:20:50.490 --> 00:20:55.789
to oversee communications during shuttle missions. Meanwhile, Lisa immersed herself
307
00:20:55.849 --> 00:21:00.450
into the rigorous new astronaut training program. During her first month,
308
00:21:00.690 --> 00:21:04.890
she completed NASA's swimming test. swimming three lengths of a
309
00:21:04.900 --> 00:21:09.529
25-meter pool while wearing a full flight suit and sneakers,
310
00:21:09.990 --> 00:21:13.210
then treading water for 10 minutes. I think I read
311
00:21:13.230 --> 00:21:16.230
that this pool is like the biggest pool in the world, maybe,
312
00:21:16.289 --> 00:21:19.589
or at least in the United States. And the astronauts
313
00:21:19.630 --> 00:21:22.630
have to train in this pool because it's most like
314
00:21:22.670 --> 00:21:24.630
the atmosphere of space.
315
00:21:24.769 --> 00:21:27.930
Yeah, that makes sense. Every time I see a thing
316
00:21:28.009 --> 00:21:31.230
where people are training, like whether it's Navy SEALs or astronauts,
317
00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:34.099
when they're training in water, it just, it feels so
318
00:21:34.140 --> 00:21:37.279
terrifying to me. They just put them in situations that
319
00:21:37.299 --> 00:21:38.220
are very stressful.
320
00:21:39.099 --> 00:21:43.039
The training covered nearly every situation an astronaut might encounter.
321
00:21:43.740 --> 00:21:48.190
Lisa learned land and sea survival, scuba diving, spacesuit operations,
322
00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:52.250
and how to respond to emergencies involving extreme changes in
323
00:21:52.369 --> 00:21:58.130
atmospheric pressure. She also began regularly flying T-38 jets to
324
00:21:58.190 --> 00:22:04.299
maintain her flight proficiency. There was also the infamous Vomit Comet,
325
00:22:04.420 --> 00:22:07.720
a modified aircraft that flew a series of steep climbs
326
00:22:07.779 --> 00:22:12.559
and dives, briefly producing the sensation of weightlessness. During a
327
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:16.259
single training session, the maneuver could be repeated dozens of times,
328
00:22:16.819 --> 00:22:20.480
giving Lisa and the other astronaut candidates their first real
329
00:22:20.539 --> 00:22:22.940
taste of what it might feel like to float in space.
330
00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:27.579
Lisa also trained as a CAPCOM, or Capsule Communicator, the
331
00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:31.769
astronaut in Mission Control responsible for communicating information directly with
332
00:22:31.829 --> 00:22:35.650
crews in space. She received extensive training to serve as
333
00:22:35.690 --> 00:22:39.700
a flight crew medical officer. A medical officer must be
334
00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:43.180
prepared to treat benign conditions such as a rash, but
335
00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:49.720
also more intense procedures like tooth extractions or an emergency appendectomy.
336
00:22:49.759 --> 00:22:51.640
That would be the worst time for your appendix to
337
00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:52.480
go out, wouldn't it?
338
00:22:53.339 --> 00:22:57.720
Lisa then advanced to the more complex shuttle mission simulators
339
00:22:57.799 --> 00:23:01.140
where she practiced virtually every stage of a mission. from
340
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:05.480
pre-launch and liftoff through orbit, re-entry, and landing. She learned
341
00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:09.579
to operate the shuttle's systems, handle payloads, and respond to
342
00:23:09.619 --> 00:23:13.509
the situations she might encounter during an actual flight. She
343
00:23:13.569 --> 00:23:18.410
read countless space shuttle manuals and studied astronomy navigation and guidance,
344
00:23:19.269 --> 00:23:26.230
orbital dynamics, meteorology, oceanography, geology, physics, mathematics, and materials processing. Woo!
345
00:23:26.900 --> 00:23:29.769
She was expected to store all of this knowledge and
346
00:23:29.809 --> 00:23:34.690
be able to reiterate it at any time. By September 1988,
347
00:23:34.690 --> 00:23:38.920
Lisa graduated from an astronaut candidate to an astronaut qualified
348
00:23:38.940 --> 00:23:43.920
for flight assignment as a mission specialist. She'd secured her
349
00:23:44.039 --> 00:23:48.049
silver wings pin. Gold wings are earned after completing a
350
00:23:48.109 --> 00:23:51.599
space mission. An astronaut can wait years to be chosen
351
00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:54.950
for a space mission. By 2001, Lisa was 38, and
352
00:23:54.990 --> 00:23:57.529
as badly as she wanted her chance to go into space,
353
00:23:57.690 --> 00:24:02.390
she also wanted to expand their family. After suffering two
354
00:24:02.450 --> 00:24:07.319
heartbreaking miscarriages, Lisa became pregnant with twin girls. She gave
355
00:24:07.359 --> 00:24:11.380
birth to Alyssa and Katrina in October. While pregnant, she
356
00:24:11.420 --> 00:24:14.960
worked Capcom for an April 2001 mission and helped install
357
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:20.859
a new robotic arm to the space station. On June 20, 2001,
358
00:24:20.859 --> 00:24:23.880
Rusty Yates was at work at Johnson Space Center when
359
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:28.460
his wife, Andrea, called and told him to come home. Andrea,
360
00:24:28.529 --> 00:24:33.509
who suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, had drowned their five children,
361
00:24:33.950 --> 00:24:36.730
ranging in age from seven years to just six months,
362
00:24:36.809 --> 00:24:40.549
in the bathtub of their Clear Lake home. The tragedy
363
00:24:40.630 --> 00:24:44.650
sent shockwaves through the NASA community. Rusty worked long hours
364
00:24:44.690 --> 00:24:48.049
while Andrea struggled with both her illness and the demands
365
00:24:48.089 --> 00:24:51.450
of caring for five young children. It was a devastating
366
00:24:51.490 --> 00:24:55.029
reminder that the extraordinary commitment required by the space program
367
00:24:55.630 --> 00:24:59.569
could place tremendous demands not only on its employees, but
368
00:24:59.609 --> 00:25:03.250
on their families as well. Lisa continued to focus on
369
00:25:03.329 --> 00:25:07.410
reaching space one day. Her schedule was grueling, often traveling
370
00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:12.440
to other countries for lengthy missions, including Russia, Canada, and Japan.
371
00:25:13.410 --> 00:25:18.710
In December 2002, NASA announced its upcoming missions for 2003,
372
00:25:18.710 --> 00:25:22.089
along with their flight crews. LISA NOAC was among the
373
00:25:22.150 --> 00:25:26.630
six people chosen to man Columbia on November 13th. The
374
00:25:26.670 --> 00:25:30.730
scheduled mission increased LISA's already heavy workload at NASA more
375
00:25:30.769 --> 00:25:32.170
than 70 hours a week.
376
00:25:33.190 --> 00:25:35.890
I have no idea how LISA was able to stay afloat.
377
00:25:36.089 --> 00:25:39.319
She has three kids at home. The twins are one
378
00:25:39.380 --> 00:25:40.700
year old at this time.
379
00:25:40.779 --> 00:25:44.089
Yeah, that's really insane with that workload.
380
00:25:44.210 --> 00:25:46.910
And I think Rich's job was also pretty demanding.
381
00:25:46.950 --> 00:25:47.769
Yeah, I'm sure it was.
382
00:25:47.789 --> 00:25:50.549
Super busy. They had help, but still.
383
00:25:50.569 --> 00:25:53.750
Yeah, that's a lot. Barbara Morgan was assigned to the
384
00:25:53.789 --> 00:25:57.059
same mission as Lisa. She was the first teacher since
385
00:25:57.140 --> 00:26:02.119
Krista McAuliffe's death during the Challenger tragedy of 1986 to
386
00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:06.039
join the crew. She would fulfill Krista's mission of teaching
387
00:26:06.099 --> 00:26:11.490
students from space. 2003's first mission launched on January 16th.
388
00:26:12.170 --> 00:26:16.440
During liftoff, a 1.5-pound piece of insulating foam broke away
389
00:26:16.519 --> 00:26:20.420
from the external fuel tank and struck Columbia's left wing,
390
00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:24.849
damaging the protective heat shielding. The extent of the damage
391
00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:29.089
wasn't realized at the time. On February 1st, as Columbia
392
00:26:29.170 --> 00:26:34.789
re-entered Earth's atmosphere, superheated gases penetrated the damaged wing and
393
00:26:34.849 --> 00:26:39.029
began destroying it from the inside. melting the shuttle's interior
394
00:26:39.089 --> 00:26:44.250
metal framework, including sensors and the landing gear. Upon re-entry,
395
00:26:44.349 --> 00:26:48.589
parts of the ship can reach 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, making
396
00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:53.880
the insulation critical. Mission Control, along with the astronauts aboard Columbia,
397
00:26:54.460 --> 00:26:58.220
searched calmly through their binders for a solution, but there
398
00:26:58.259 --> 00:27:01.400
simply wasn't one, and although they'd crossed back into the
399
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.700
Earth's atmosphere, they were still too high to eject from
400
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:08.690
the ship. At 8 a.m., mission control lost all contact
401
00:27:08.730 --> 00:27:14.880
with Columbia. The instrument panels stopped communicating, as did the astronauts, mid-sentence.
402
00:27:15.819 --> 00:27:19.619
The astronauts likely knew something was very wrong, but lost
403
00:27:19.700 --> 00:27:23.549
consciousness before the shuttle broke apart over Texas due to
404
00:27:23.589 --> 00:27:27.829
the increased G-force inside the cabin. The remains of all
405
00:27:27.890 --> 00:27:32.430
seven astronauts were eventually located. Lisa was at home watching
406
00:27:32.470 --> 00:27:36.329
in horror as the tragedy unfolded with her nine-year-old son
407
00:27:36.369 --> 00:27:40.390
by her side. The loss was deeply personal for Lisa.
408
00:27:40.930 --> 00:27:43.910
Columbia was the shuttle she was scheduled to fly aboard
409
00:27:43.950 --> 00:27:47.910
later that year, and three members of her own astronaut class,
410
00:27:48.190 --> 00:27:53.240
Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark, were among the
411
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:58.519
seven astronauts killed. They had entered NASA together in 1996
412
00:27:58.519 --> 00:28:02.839
and went through astronaut training side by side. Lisa's upcoming
413
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:06.250
mission was scrubbed, but to her, That was secondary to
414
00:28:06.289 --> 00:28:09.559
the loss of her close friend Laurel Clark. In the
415
00:28:09.579 --> 00:28:13.140
weeks that followed, Lisa mourned Laurel while doing what she
416
00:28:13.180 --> 00:28:16.579
could to support her family through their grief, spending more
417
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:20.779
time with Laurel's son than her own children. Columbia's loss
418
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:25.680
also left NASA facing an enormous practical problem. The shuttle
419
00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:28.859
program was more than 20 years old. The fleet was
420
00:28:28.980 --> 00:28:32.470
aging and NASA had no replacement spacecraft ready to take
421
00:28:32.509 --> 00:28:35.349
its place, or the budget to build a new one.
422
00:28:36.109 --> 00:28:41.130
The three remaining shuttles, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, were grounded
423
00:28:41.210 --> 00:28:44.819
while NASA investigated the disaster and made the safety and
424
00:28:44.890 --> 00:28:49.839
engineering changes required before anyone could fly again. The future
425
00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:52.400
of the shuttle program, and of the astronauts who had
426
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:56.839
devoted their careers to it, was suddenly uncertain. The loss
427
00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:00.930
of Columbia was devastating on every level. Years of work
428
00:29:01.049 --> 00:29:04.190
and billions of dollars had been invested in the shuttle program,
429
00:29:04.930 --> 00:29:07.450
but none of that compared to the devastating loss of
430
00:29:07.529 --> 00:29:12.049
seven lives. NASA understood that a tragedy of this magnitude
431
00:29:12.170 --> 00:29:16.930
could take a serious psychological toll. Astronauts were selected and
432
00:29:17.009 --> 00:29:22.390
trained to remain composed under extraordinary pressure, to compartmentalize fear
433
00:29:22.509 --> 00:29:26.269
and emotion, and focus on the task at hand. Those
434
00:29:26.369 --> 00:29:29.640
qualities could save lives during a crisis. but they could
435
00:29:29.700 --> 00:29:32.680
also make it difficult to acknowledge when they were struggling.
436
00:29:33.619 --> 00:29:36.730
During this difficult period, Lisa leaned heavily on her fellow
437
00:29:36.869 --> 00:29:41.420
astronauts for support, especially William O. better known to his
438
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:46.039
friends as Billy or Billy O. He lived in Seabrook, Texas,
439
00:29:46.119 --> 00:29:51.180
about 40 minutes southeast of Houston. William Opheline was born
440
00:29:51.220 --> 00:29:55.539
in Virginia in March 1965 to Billy and Randall Opheline.
441
00:29:56.509 --> 00:30:00.819
He grew up alongside his older brother, Randall Jr., Randall Sr.
442
00:30:00.900 --> 00:30:03.660
served in the Air Force and passed his fascination of
443
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:08.440
aviation down to his sons. They both became pilots. After
444
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:12.539
the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska in 1975, Bill and
445
00:30:12.559 --> 00:30:17.279
his brother loved exploring the Alaskan wilderness. Billy began flying
446
00:30:17.319 --> 00:30:21.619
at 14, earning his license at 19. After high school,
447
00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:25.440
he studied electrical engineering at the University of Alaska, eventually
448
00:30:25.500 --> 00:30:30.410
graduating from Oregon State University. where his girlfriend, Michaela Davis,
449
00:30:30.529 --> 00:30:34.529
was attending school. They married in 1988, the same year
450
00:30:34.589 --> 00:30:39.190
Billy entered Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School. He and Michaela
451
00:30:39.230 --> 00:30:42.910
had two children, Bud and Kristen. Bill went on to
452
00:30:42.950 --> 00:30:46.210
become a fighter pilot, serve during the Gulf War, attend
453
00:30:46.309 --> 00:30:50.009
Top Gun, and graduate from the Naval Test Pilot School.
454
00:30:50.029 --> 00:30:52.519
By 1998, Bill, 33, had logged about 3,000 flight hours
455
00:30:52.539 --> 00:31:00.730
in 50 different aircraft, and completed more than 200 carrier landings.
456
00:31:01.609 --> 00:31:04.890
That June, NASA selected him as one of 25 members
457
00:31:04.990 --> 00:31:09.230
of its newest astronaut class. He became the first astronaut
458
00:31:09.250 --> 00:31:12.559
from Alaska and was scheduled to launch into space in
459
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:16.700
July 2003, but his mission was postponed for three and
460
00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:20.640
a half years after the Columbia incident. He worked at
461
00:31:20.700 --> 00:31:24.369
Johnson Space Center, where he became close friends with Lisa Nowak.
462
00:31:25.180 --> 00:31:28.319
In January 2004, Lisa and Bill were sent with a
463
00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:32.289
small group of astronauts to northern Quebec for cold weather
464
00:31:32.329 --> 00:31:36.869
survival training. After several days training with the Canadian military,
465
00:31:36.890 --> 00:31:40.869
the group was dropped into the snowy wilderness, carrying only
466
00:31:40.910 --> 00:31:43.849
what they could fit in their backpacks. For more than
467
00:31:43.890 --> 00:31:46.930
a week, they hiked miles through the snowy backcountry by
468
00:31:46.970 --> 00:31:49.150
day and made camp each night.
469
00:31:49.990 --> 00:31:52.759
Some of the training for these astronauts, I'm like, why
470
00:31:52.819 --> 00:31:56.079
are you torturing these poor people? It seems like they
471
00:31:56.099 --> 00:31:59.299
were hiking like 10 miles a day in the cold
472
00:31:59.420 --> 00:32:03.400
and without any structure to sleep in. They just had
473
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:05.049
to sleep or make their own.
474
00:32:05.849 --> 00:32:07.869
Yeah, probably not the type of situation they're going to
475
00:32:07.890 --> 00:32:09.829
run into in space. But I think the point is
476
00:32:09.869 --> 00:32:13.869
just to put them in super high pressure situations and
477
00:32:13.890 --> 00:32:16.369
stressful situations to make sure they can handle it, I guess.
478
00:32:17.430 --> 00:32:19.950
All of this grueling training, though, comes at a pretty
479
00:32:19.990 --> 00:32:21.509
steep cost for the astronauts.
480
00:32:21.910 --> 00:32:25.950
Yeah, I mean, psychologically, I'm sure, and physically. The intense
481
00:32:26.009 --> 00:32:30.230
experience brought Lisa and Billy closer together, strengthening a friendship
482
00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:33.230
that had already developed during their years working together at
483
00:32:33.269 --> 00:32:37.799
Johnson Space Center. During this trip, their friendship developed into
484
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:43.299
an intimate relationship. In November 2004, Lisa finally received another
485
00:32:43.359 --> 00:32:47.670
flight assignment. She was named a mission specialist aboard Discovery
486
00:32:47.769 --> 00:32:52.230
to deliver supplies to the space station. Lisa was responsible
487
00:32:52.279 --> 00:32:55.599
for operating the robotic arms aboard both Discovery and the
488
00:32:55.660 --> 00:33:00.500
International Space Station, including equipment designed to inspect the shuttle
489
00:33:00.539 --> 00:33:04.460
for damage. After waiting nearly a decade to reach space,
490
00:33:04.759 --> 00:33:07.490
Lisa once again had a mission to prepare for. In
491
00:33:08.750 --> 00:33:13.349
early 2005, Michelle Opheline suspected there was trouble in her marriage.
492
00:33:14.299 --> 00:33:17.079
Bill had become cold and distant and developed a hair
493
00:33:17.140 --> 00:33:20.480
trigger with her and the children, although he insisted there
494
00:33:20.519 --> 00:33:23.970
was nothing wrong. She discovered the source of her husband's
495
00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:28.109
animosity when she found intimate emails between Bill and Lisa Nowak.
496
00:33:29.130 --> 00:33:32.349
She filed for divorce in February, the same month that
497
00:33:32.390 --> 00:33:37.190
Bill was announced as pilot for a mission in late 2006.
498
00:33:37.190 --> 00:33:39.170
He moved out of the family home into a small
499
00:33:39.230 --> 00:33:43.589
apartment nearby. Lisa became such a frequent visitor here that
500
00:33:43.650 --> 00:33:46.329
Bill's neighbors thought she lived there and they were a couple.
501
00:33:47.230 --> 00:33:51.410
The divorce was finalized by May. Although Michaela had learned
502
00:33:51.430 --> 00:33:55.130
of the affair and acted, Rich Nowak was none the wiser.
503
00:33:55.890 --> 00:33:59.130
Bill resented that Lisa's marriage was still intact while his
504
00:33:59.170 --> 00:34:02.539
had ended, and he encouraged her to leave her husband,
505
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:06.319
but she wasn't ready. On July 26, 2005, discovery finally
506
00:34:06.339 --> 00:34:12.449
lifted off. the first shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster,
507
00:34:13.250 --> 00:34:16.510
nearly two and a half years earlier. NASA had spent
508
00:34:16.550 --> 00:34:20.670
that time investigating the accident and making extensive safety improvements.
509
00:34:21.630 --> 00:34:26.199
But during the launch, cameras captured something deeply concerning. Pieces
510
00:34:26.239 --> 00:34:29.500
of insulating foam once again broke away from the external
511
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:34.760
fuel tank, including one large piece measuring roughly three feet long.
512
00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:39.019
This time, thankfully, the foam didn't hit the shuttle, causing damage.
513
00:34:39.690 --> 00:34:42.550
But when Discovery and its crew returned safely to Earth,
514
00:34:43.130 --> 00:34:46.389
NASA wasn't willing to take another chance and grounded the
515
00:34:46.429 --> 00:34:50.460
shuttle again while engineers tried to understand why the foam
516
00:34:50.500 --> 00:34:55.619
insulation continued to be a problem. Lisa's mission was again scrubbed.
517
00:34:56.380 --> 00:34:59.239
I actually remember this time. I do too, yeah. It
518
00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:01.840
just seemed like every single time they wanted to launch
519
00:35:01.900 --> 00:35:05.809
or they went out, like the foam just... kept falling off.
520
00:35:05.829 --> 00:35:08.530
It must have been so frustrating to be a part
521
00:35:08.550 --> 00:35:09.690
of NASA during that time.
522
00:35:09.789 --> 00:35:12.849
I remember when this specific mission was returning to Earth,
523
00:35:12.889 --> 00:35:16.130
it was a very stressful time. Everybody was on edge.
524
00:35:16.269 --> 00:35:19.510
Are we going to have another disaster.
525
00:35:19.070 --> 00:35:20.869
Or is it going to make it? Imagine being on
526
00:35:20.949 --> 00:35:26.199
that flight. We know every astronaut seriously does know that
527
00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:27.860
there is a chance that they might not make it
528
00:35:27.900 --> 00:35:29.519
back to Earth when they go on a mission.
529
00:35:29.579 --> 00:35:33.380
Being in that situation, though, that's a whole other level
530
00:35:33.420 --> 00:35:37.960
of really scary stuff. In an interview with Florida Today
531
00:35:38.039 --> 00:35:41.559
in 2005, Lisa was asked how she balanced being an
532
00:35:41.699 --> 00:35:45.989
astronaut with motherhood. She acknowledged that early in her career
533
00:35:46.119 --> 00:35:49.289
she had actually been advised against having children, but chose
534
00:35:49.349 --> 00:35:53.409
to anyway. She credited Rich for supporting her career and
535
00:35:53.449 --> 00:35:59.000
pushed back against the different expectations placed on mothers and fathers. Quote,
536
00:35:59.530 --> 00:36:02.599
Sometimes people question why a mother would consider this type
537
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:06.019
of job with young children, but I notice most don't
538
00:36:06.059 --> 00:36:08.780
seem to have a problem with fathers in the same position.
539
00:36:09.880 --> 00:36:12.760
Lisa said she wanted her children and other young people
540
00:36:13.300 --> 00:36:15.739
to see that it was possible to have a challenging,
541
00:36:15.909 --> 00:36:19.969
rewarding career while still being someone your family could count on.
542
00:36:20.769 --> 00:36:24.030
Her advice to other women was practical. Don't put off
543
00:36:24.090 --> 00:36:28.090
having children indefinitely. Make time with them a priority, and
544
00:36:28.150 --> 00:36:31.670
when possible, pay someone else to handle things like housework
545
00:36:31.730 --> 00:36:34.889
and yard work so that limited time could be spent
546
00:36:34.929 --> 00:36:37.969
with family. We'll be back after a break.
547
00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:49.420
In February 2006, NASA announced a target launch date for
548
00:36:49.500 --> 00:36:56.269
Space Shuttle Discovery's next launch, May 10th, Lisa's 43rd birthday. However,
549
00:36:56.349 --> 00:36:59.969
bad weather pushed the mission back to July. as NASA
550
00:37:00.010 --> 00:37:04.750
continued addressing problems with the external fuel tank. There was
551
00:37:04.809 --> 00:37:09.679
disagreement over whether Discovery should launch. NASA's chief engineer and
552
00:37:09.719 --> 00:37:14.079
top safety official recommended another delay, concerned that foam could
553
00:37:14.300 --> 00:37:19.039
once again break away and damage the shuttle. NASA administration
554
00:37:19.340 --> 00:37:24.119
ultimately approved the launch, pointing to new procedures that allowed
555
00:37:24.139 --> 00:37:27.500
the crew to inspect Discovery for damage in orbit. and
556
00:37:27.539 --> 00:37:32.019
if necessary, remain aboard the International Space Station while NASA
557
00:37:32.059 --> 00:37:36.090
prepared a rescue mission. It's tradition for space shuttle crews
558
00:37:36.119 --> 00:37:41.809
to have a pre-launch party. On Thursday, June 29, 2006,
559
00:37:41.809 --> 00:37:44.989
nearly 200 people gathered in Lisa's honor at the Kennedy
560
00:37:45.030 --> 00:37:49.929
Space Center, hosted by her parents, Jane and Alfredo Caputo.
561
00:37:50.590 --> 00:37:53.309
Friends from different periods of her life came to celebrate
562
00:37:53.369 --> 00:37:56.960
with her, along with Rich, their three children, her sisters,
563
00:37:57.019 --> 00:38:01.199
and extended family. Two elderly great-aunts sent Lisa an angel
564
00:38:01.239 --> 00:38:04.929
pin that had been blessed by their priest. Lisa and
565
00:38:04.969 --> 00:38:07.829
the crew were strapped into Discovery and ready to go
566
00:38:07.909 --> 00:38:11.210
on July 1st, but thunderstorms near the launch site forced
567
00:38:11.289 --> 00:38:14.789
NASA to scrub the flight. The same thing happened the
568
00:38:14.869 --> 00:38:17.949
following day when bad weather once again prevented the launch.
569
00:38:18.730 --> 00:38:22.690
The new date was set for July 4th. Just before launch,
570
00:38:22.750 --> 00:38:27.519
inspectors discovered a small crack in the insulating foam. NASA
571
00:38:27.579 --> 00:38:31.980
engineers determined that condensation and ice had contributed to the damage,
572
00:38:32.679 --> 00:38:36.010
but after a close inspection, they concluded the remaining foam
573
00:38:36.030 --> 00:38:40.530
was secure and Discovery was safe to fly. Being the
574
00:38:40.610 --> 00:38:44.900
first launch since the Columbia tragedy, all eyes were on Discovery.
575
00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:50.519
At 11.42 a.m., the astronauts were strapped inside. Steve Lindsay,
576
00:38:50.719 --> 00:38:55.119
Mark Kelly, Lisa Nowak, and Mike Fosum on the top deck,
577
00:38:55.610 --> 00:39:00.849
Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers, and Thomas Ryder on mid-deck. It
578
00:39:00.909 --> 00:39:06.110
was a 44-hour flight to the space station. At 2.38 p.m.,
579
00:39:06.190 --> 00:39:12.949
Discovery lifted off. Lisa's four-year-old twins had mixed reactions. Alyssa smiled, waved,
580
00:39:12.989 --> 00:39:17.519
and shouted, Bye, Mom! While Katrina cried and yelled, no shuttle, mama,
581
00:39:17.599 --> 00:39:22.750
come down. Not long after launch, cameras detected several small
582
00:39:22.789 --> 00:39:26.070
pieces of debris breaking away from the external fuel tank,
583
00:39:26.949 --> 00:39:29.969
including a piece of foam that appeared to strike the underside.
584
00:39:30.110 --> 00:39:33.860
of Discovery. The images were concerning, but the debris had
585
00:39:33.889 --> 00:39:36.929
broken away late enough in the ascent that it didn't
586
00:39:37.010 --> 00:39:41.739
pose a danger. Lisa served as Discovery's flight engineer during
587
00:39:41.780 --> 00:39:45.579
the ascent, sitting behind and between the commander and pilot
588
00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:49.510
and helping coordinate the flight. Despite years of training, her
589
00:39:49.590 --> 00:39:54.260
first experience in space wasn't entirely pleasant. Lisa struggled with
590
00:39:54.340 --> 00:39:58.320
nausea as her body adjusted to weightlessness, while other members
591
00:39:58.380 --> 00:40:02.480
of the crew experienced headaches and congestion as fluids that
592
00:40:02.539 --> 00:40:05.980
normally settled in the lower body shifted towards their heads.
593
00:40:07.019 --> 00:40:10.690
Food can taste different in space. Without gravity, fluids shift
594
00:40:11.090 --> 00:40:14.570
toward the upper body, causing congestion that can dull an
595
00:40:14.690 --> 00:40:18.159
astronaut's sense of smell and taste. As a result, some
596
00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:22.800
astronauts developed a greater appreciation for spicy or strongly flavored foods,
597
00:40:23.610 --> 00:40:28.150
and Discovery was carrying a special delivery. Chef Emeril Lagasse
598
00:40:28.190 --> 00:40:31.409
worked with NASA to create several dishes for the International
599
00:40:31.489 --> 00:40:36.110
Space Station, including jambalaya, mashed potatoes with bacon, and spicy
600
00:40:36.170 --> 00:40:39.909
green beans with garlic. During the mission, Lisa was able
601
00:40:39.929 --> 00:40:44.159
to video chat with her husband and children. At 9.14
602
00:40:44.159 --> 00:40:47.219
in the morning of July 17th, Discovery made a picture-perfect
603
00:40:47.260 --> 00:40:50.860
landing at Kennedy Space Center after traveling more than 5
604
00:40:50.860 --> 00:40:54.840
million miles and spending nearly 13 days in space. Lisa
605
00:40:54.900 --> 00:40:58.050
and her fellow astronauts were welcomed home by family and friends.
606
00:40:58.789 --> 00:41:01.730
Lisa told reporters, It was a great flight. We had
607
00:41:01.750 --> 00:41:04.050
a lot of fun. We did do a lot of
608
00:41:04.110 --> 00:41:07.269
challenging robotic operations and a lot of other things too.
609
00:41:08.130 --> 00:41:11.070
But of course, robotics is something we did almost every day.
610
00:41:11.929 --> 00:41:14.989
Stephanie and I, as the robo-chicks, enjoyed doing those on
611
00:41:15.010 --> 00:41:18.190
the space station side. A lot of her duty there
612
00:41:18.250 --> 00:41:21.159
was to operate this robotic arm to install it and
613
00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:24.360
operate it. The crew was thrilled with the success of
614
00:41:24.380 --> 00:41:27.840
the mission, but after nearly 13 days of sponge baths,
615
00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:32.179
rinseless soap and shampoo, a long hot shower back on Earth,
616
00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:35.900
must have sounded pretty good. When Lisa entered her neighborhood,
617
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:39.780
she received a hero's welcome. Her neighbors had decorated her
618
00:41:39.820 --> 00:41:44.079
street with patriotic streamers and balloons. President George W. Bush
619
00:41:44.119 --> 00:41:46.590
called the crew to congratulate them on their mission and
620
00:41:46.630 --> 00:41:47.989
to invite them to the White House.
621
00:41:48.949 --> 00:41:50.909
That must have been such a great feeling to get
622
00:41:50.969 --> 00:41:51.949
back to Earth safely.
623
00:41:52.769 --> 00:41:56.090
Well, it is, but after returning to Earth, Lisa struggled.
624
00:41:56.190 --> 00:41:58.389
The excitement and purpose that had driven her for so
625
00:41:58.429 --> 00:42:01.880
long were suddenly gone. She'd spent most of her life
626
00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:04.199
working toward the goal of getting to space, and now
627
00:42:04.559 --> 00:42:07.719
she had accomplished that. She wondered what was next for her.
628
00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:12.139
She knew another space mission was unlikely, and her marriage
629
00:42:12.179 --> 00:42:15.900
to Rich was also crumbling. In November, neighbors heard the
630
00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:19.719
sound of dishes and other objects breaking inside the Nowak home.
631
00:42:20.639 --> 00:42:24.769
As things grew more difficult, Lisa became increasingly focused on Bill,
632
00:42:25.429 --> 00:42:28.530
who was busy preparing for his own flight aboard Discovery.
633
00:42:28.550 --> 00:42:32.949
The affair with Bill was cooling off. Lisa could feel
634
00:42:32.989 --> 00:42:36.389
his interest dwindling. Suddenly, he didn't have time for her.
635
00:42:37.050 --> 00:42:41.050
Her calls and texts went unanswered for days. Bill hadn't
636
00:42:41.110 --> 00:42:44.449
told Lisa yet, but in November, he'd met a new woman,
637
00:42:44.469 --> 00:42:50.269
30-year-old Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, born in January 1977
638
00:42:50.269 --> 00:42:55.670
in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. In high school, Colleen was an
639
00:42:55.809 --> 00:43:00.429
excellent student, a gymnast, ran track, and played volleyball. While
640
00:43:00.510 --> 00:43:04.360
at Penn State, she enrolled in ROTC. She majored in
641
00:43:04.389 --> 00:43:08.460
chemical engineering and German. Later in life, she discovered a
642
00:43:08.619 --> 00:43:13.159
love of Irish dancing. After graduation, she worked at Wright-Patterson
643
00:43:13.260 --> 00:43:16.130
Air Force Base outside of Dayton, Ohio, as an engineer.
644
00:43:16.150 --> 00:43:18.150
I used to live right next to Wright-Patterson.
645
00:43:18.170 --> 00:43:22.590
Yeah. Later, she transferred to Patrick Air Force Base near
646
00:43:22.650 --> 00:43:27.030
Cape Canaveral, testing hardware for space flights. In her free time,
647
00:43:27.070 --> 00:43:30.579
she took flying lessons. Sometimes her work took her to
648
00:43:30.599 --> 00:43:34.519
the Kennedy Space Center, where she met Bill O'Falline weeks
649
00:43:34.599 --> 00:43:38.380
before his mission at a party celebrating his upcoming mission.
650
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:42.719
Sparks flew immediately between them. He told Colleen that he
651
00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:45.980
was entangled with another woman, but he'd break it off
652
00:43:46.019 --> 00:43:49.820
so they could make their relationship exclusive. She later told
653
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:54.219
NBC News, quote, he was just a charming, handsome, very
654
00:43:54.280 --> 00:43:58.969
polite man. And he started talking to me. Weeks later,
655
00:43:59.050 --> 00:44:02.829
she asked, the other woman knows it's over. You made
656
00:44:02.869 --> 00:44:06.659
it clear? Yes, he replied. I was very clear. I
657
00:44:06.699 --> 00:44:09.260
want to be honest with you about my past. I
658
00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:13.260
don't want to screw this relationship up. Bill had, in fact,
659
00:44:13.539 --> 00:44:18.579
not been honest with Colleen Shipman or Lisa Nowak. Lisa
660
00:44:18.599 --> 00:44:21.880
was assigned as one of the CAPCOMs for Bill's December mission.
661
00:44:22.539 --> 00:44:26.420
Short for Capsule Communicator, the CAPCOM serves as the voice
662
00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:30.960
of mission control, relaying information and instructions directly to the
663
00:44:31.099 --> 00:44:34.900
astronauts in space. It meant that while Bill was aboard Discovery,
664
00:44:34.940 --> 00:44:37.659
Lisa would sometimes be the voice he heard from Houston.
665
00:44:38.760 --> 00:44:42.679
In December 9, 2006, Bill launched into space on Discovery
666
00:44:42.719 --> 00:44:46.210
for his first and only mission to space. Lisa was
667
00:44:46.250 --> 00:44:50.150
not invited to the customary dinner and reception before the flight.
668
00:44:50.730 --> 00:44:55.030
Colleen was by his side instead. The mission was a success.
669
00:44:55.369 --> 00:44:58.829
Bill wrote excitedly to students at his old elementary school
670
00:44:58.869 --> 00:45:03.280
in Alaska. Quote, The launch was ten times more exciting
671
00:45:03.320 --> 00:45:06.760
than I thought. The sights and sounds and sensations were
672
00:45:06.920 --> 00:45:10.349
literally out of this world. You shake a lot when
673
00:45:10.369 --> 00:45:14.090
the solid rocket boosters ignite. Then you get pressed into
674
00:45:14.130 --> 00:45:16.969
your seat pretty hard as you accelerate up to speed
675
00:45:17.630 --> 00:45:21.530
when you need to stay in orbit. Lisa communicated with
676
00:45:21.570 --> 00:45:25.880
Bill professionally from Mission Control. Colleen and Bill continued their
677
00:45:25.889 --> 00:45:31.239
relationship privately, exchanging flirtatious emails and I love yous. On
678
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:35.750
December 20th, Colleen emailed Bill in space, quote, Will have
679
00:45:35.789 --> 00:45:38.869
to control myself when I see you. First urge will
680
00:45:38.889 --> 00:45:41.269
be to rip your clothes off, throw you on the ground,
681
00:45:41.369 --> 00:45:44.260
and love the hell out of you. Am anxious to
682
00:45:44.300 --> 00:45:46.739
get you alone, but honestly love, I want you to
683
00:45:46.840 --> 00:45:51.599
totally and thoroughly enjoy your hero's homecoming. So happy for you.
684
00:45:52.050 --> 00:45:53.090
I'll be here for you.
685
00:45:53.559 --> 00:45:55.579
I'm a little surprised to hear that there was an
686
00:45:55.619 --> 00:45:59.139
ability to communicate via email between astronauts in space and
687
00:45:59.159 --> 00:46:02.380
people on the ground. I would think any communication would
688
00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:05.539
be monitored or overheard by mission control.
689
00:46:05.559 --> 00:46:09.760
Your email was still private. When Bill returned to Earth,
690
00:46:09.860 --> 00:46:13.050
Lisa was ready to go full throttle on their relationship.
691
00:46:13.670 --> 00:46:16.650
Her husband had moved out, removing what she believed had
692
00:46:16.670 --> 00:46:20.889
been the biggest obstacle between them. But Bill was evasive,
693
00:46:21.070 --> 00:46:25.289
largely dodging her calls and texts. Whatever Lisa believed was
694
00:46:25.329 --> 00:46:29.130
still possible between them, Bill was telling Colleen something very different.
695
00:46:29.889 --> 00:46:33.969
When Colleen asked him about Lisa, he reassured her, She's
696
00:46:33.989 --> 00:46:36.369
still a good friend. She's happy for me that I've
697
00:46:36.409 --> 00:46:40.349
fallen in love and am happy. Colleen responded, Are you
698
00:46:40.489 --> 00:46:43.309
sure she's okay with this? There going to be some
699
00:46:43.409 --> 00:46:47.809
crazy lady showing up at my door trying to kill me? No, no, no,
700
00:46:47.909 --> 00:46:51.019
Bill insisted. She's not like that. She's fine with it.
701
00:46:51.070 --> 00:46:51.909
She's happy for me.
702
00:46:51.929 --> 00:46:53.860
That's pretty prescient, I guess, huh? Yeah.
703
00:46:54.739 --> 00:46:57.170
Bill went to Colleen's family's house with her on Christmas,
704
00:46:57.250 --> 00:46:59.730
at times sneaking away to call or text Lisa, who
705
00:46:59.769 --> 00:47:03.429
still had no idea about his new relationship. In fact,
706
00:47:03.829 --> 00:47:07.570
she wrote a letter to Bill's mother. Dear Mrs. Opheline,
707
00:47:07.670 --> 00:47:10.250
thank you so much for your wonderful and encouraging notes
708
00:47:10.309 --> 00:47:13.630
to me. I enjoyed sharing the amazing experience of my
709
00:47:13.730 --> 00:47:17.000
mission with you from space in July. The past few
710
00:47:17.019 --> 00:47:21.030
years have been wonderful and challenging in many ways. Bill
711
00:47:21.050 --> 00:47:23.750
is absolutely the best person I've ever known and I
712
00:47:23.829 --> 00:47:27.389
love him more than I know possible. Your kindness of
713
00:47:27.449 --> 00:47:31.110
supporting us, even under such circumstances as have existed in
714
00:47:31.150 --> 00:47:36.000
the past, is nothing short of extraordinary. Fortunately, the past
715
00:47:36.039 --> 00:47:39.559
situation is finally coming to a close with formal separation
716
00:47:40.300 --> 00:47:42.940
and separate living arrangements accomplished and I am in the
717
00:47:42.980 --> 00:47:47.039
process of completing all the official divorce paperwork. It is
718
00:47:47.119 --> 00:47:50.289
long overdue. But it is finally here and I'm very
719
00:47:50.329 --> 00:47:53.010
much looking forward to getting to know you even better.
720
00:47:53.030 --> 00:47:56.059
It has been my privilege and honor to receive such
721
00:47:56.119 --> 00:48:00.059
special caring from you, especially since my parents are not
722
00:48:00.099 --> 00:48:03.119
as supportive right now. It really matters a lot to
723
00:48:03.159 --> 00:48:05.530
me to have you, another mom to look up to.
724
00:48:06.199 --> 00:48:09.570
Thank you so much for being there for me. Love, Lisa.
725
00:48:09.590 --> 00:48:11.889
That must have been very strange for them to get
726
00:48:11.929 --> 00:48:12.329
this letter.
727
00:48:12.349 --> 00:48:16.389
Oh yes, I think it was very awkward. Finally, after
728
00:48:16.409 --> 00:48:18.519
the new year, when he and Colleen had decided to
729
00:48:18.539 --> 00:48:22.079
make their relationship exclusive, Bill had a conversation with Lisa.
730
00:48:22.099 --> 00:48:24.780
He told her that he'd fallen in love with another
731
00:48:24.840 --> 00:48:28.960
woman and whatever they'd had was over. He believed that
732
00:48:29.019 --> 00:48:31.679
she took the news well. With a cat out of
733
00:48:31.699 --> 00:48:34.079
the bag, Bill placed a photo of his new love
734
00:48:34.179 --> 00:48:37.369
on his desk. Bill was walking on air. He'd never
735
00:48:37.449 --> 00:48:39.989
been so in love. He was proud of his new
736
00:48:40.030 --> 00:48:42.630
girlfriend and couldn't wait to spend every moment with her.
737
00:48:43.590 --> 00:48:45.670
There were even plans in the works for Colleen to
738
00:48:45.710 --> 00:48:49.230
leave the Air Force and relocate to Houston. Bill and
739
00:48:49.250 --> 00:48:52.110
Lisa continued to work closely and often flew together to
740
00:48:52.150 --> 00:48:55.349
get their hours in. They still spent time together out
741
00:48:55.389 --> 00:48:59.329
of work too. Running, biking, and even eating meals together.
742
00:48:59.349 --> 00:49:03.829
In Bill's mind though, he'd done everything right. Lisa knew
743
00:49:03.869 --> 00:49:07.309
where they stood. They were just friends. But Lisa had
744
00:49:07.429 --> 00:49:10.650
not given up on their relationship. She was sure she
745
00:49:10.670 --> 00:49:14.110
could win him back. She had a plan. She needed
746
00:49:14.150 --> 00:49:16.590
to confront the other woman in Orlando.
747
00:49:17.510 --> 00:49:21.590
Lisa became consumed with winning Bill back. She was sleeping
748
00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:24.070
only two or three hours a night and barely eating.
749
00:49:24.889 --> 00:49:28.119
Within a matter of weeks, she lost 20 pounds, leaving
750
00:49:28.179 --> 00:49:33.320
her already thin frame noticeably gaunt. She lost focus. She
751
00:49:33.340 --> 00:49:36.800
was pulled over three times by police for distracted driving.
752
00:49:37.719 --> 00:49:42.050
Bill still shared his schedule with Lisa. Astronauts frequently traveled
753
00:49:42.090 --> 00:49:47.199
for speaking engagements, especially after returning from space. Lisa knew
754
00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:51.099
that on January 23rd at 1230, Bill had a meeting.
755
00:49:51.639 --> 00:49:54.400
She slid into his apartment to do a little investigating.
756
00:49:55.099 --> 00:49:58.099
He had given her a key months ago. Lisa found
757
00:49:58.139 --> 00:50:01.159
the details of a flight Bill had scheduled for Colleen
758
00:50:01.219 --> 00:50:05.460
on February 5th and took note. She jotted down Colleen's
759
00:50:05.719 --> 00:50:09.260
phone number and address. Then she logged into his email
760
00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:13.030
account and downloaded some very personal messages between the couple
761
00:50:13.699 --> 00:50:17.670
that she later printed out. Each astronaut brings a unique
762
00:50:17.730 --> 00:50:23.030
skill set to a mission. Among Lisa's strengths were her determination, organization,
763
00:50:23.170 --> 00:50:26.789
and attention to detail. In the days before she left
764
00:50:26.829 --> 00:50:30.800
for her Orlando mission to confront Colleen Shipman, Lisa had
765
00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:35.059
meticulously planned the trip. As she gathered supplies for the trip,
766
00:50:35.139 --> 00:50:38.659
she checked them off a list. The items included a wig,
767
00:50:39.159 --> 00:50:43.039
a trench coat, a BB gun, a mallet, rubber tubing,
768
00:50:43.460 --> 00:50:48.619
latex gloves, plastic bags, and astronaut diapers, also known as
769
00:50:48.760 --> 00:50:54.699
maximum absorbency garments. She withdrew cash, then studied maps of Orlando,
770
00:50:55.219 --> 00:50:59.019
familiarized herself with the airport and the parking situation, and
771
00:50:59.099 --> 00:51:04.739
found Colleen's address. She had 67 pages of directions from MapQuest.
772
00:51:05.460 --> 00:51:08.840
Lisa made a reservation for a hotel in the Florida Panhandle.
773
00:51:09.139 --> 00:51:12.280
She would need to sleep. She requested a few days
774
00:51:12.400 --> 00:51:14.639
off of work and then packed up her car before
775
00:51:14.679 --> 00:51:20.179
hitting the road for her 950-mile, 15-hour journey, leaving her
776
00:51:20.260 --> 00:51:24.250
cell phone behind so her movements couldn't be traced. As
777
00:51:24.329 --> 00:51:28.230
Lisa started her drive to Orlando on Saturday, February 3rd,
778
00:51:28.789 --> 00:51:32.190
Bill and Colleen were spending the weekend together. He had
779
00:51:32.230 --> 00:51:35.550
picked her up from the airport on Thursday. When Colleen
780
00:51:35.610 --> 00:51:38.769
saw Lisa's bike still in Bill's apartment, she told him
781
00:51:38.789 --> 00:51:42.539
that the situation made her uncomfortable. He said he would
782
00:51:42.579 --> 00:51:45.039
get rid of the bike, which he did, but the
783
00:51:45.079 --> 00:51:49.869
next night in bed, he called Colleen Lisa. Ooh, that's bad.
784
00:51:50.659 --> 00:51:54.170
Lisa drove nine hours without stopping before arriving at a
785
00:51:54.190 --> 00:51:57.969
day's end to sleep. She registered under the name Linda
786
00:51:58.050 --> 00:52:02.309
Turner and paid cash. On February 5th, she checked into
787
00:52:02.369 --> 00:52:05.090
a La Quinta Inn in Orlando and then drove to
788
00:52:05.130 --> 00:52:09.369
the airport after midnight. Colleen's flight was scheduled to land
789
00:52:09.429 --> 00:52:13.829
at 1.05 a.m. Lisa, wearing a trench coat, wig, and
790
00:52:13.889 --> 00:52:17.420
dark sunglasses, hung in the shadows, waiting to catch a
791
00:52:17.469 --> 00:52:22.280
glimpse of her at baggage claim. At 1.22, Lisa saw
792
00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:26.000
her making her way to the carousel. Colleen was thinking
793
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:28.559
only of crawling into her bed as she watched for
794
00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:32.539
her suitcase. She propped her tired body against a column
795
00:52:32.599 --> 00:52:37.019
and stood watching the other passengers grabbing their possessions. When
796
00:52:37.059 --> 00:52:39.480
her luggage didn't come out, she went to the office
797
00:52:39.559 --> 00:52:41.840
where they told her that it would arrive on the
798
00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:45.480
next plane at 3 a.m. She could wait or they
799
00:52:45.500 --> 00:52:47.619
would drop it off at her apartment in the morning.
800
00:52:48.389 --> 00:52:51.730
She elected to wait. She went to Starbucks and ordered
801
00:52:51.769 --> 00:52:55.530
a hot chocolate and a Danish. Lisa followed and ordered
802
00:52:55.550 --> 00:52:59.130
a coffee. Colleen fell asleep in a chair under Lisa's
803
00:52:59.190 --> 00:53:04.440
watchful eye. At 3.25, Colleen roused. She picked up her
804
00:53:04.480 --> 00:53:07.400
suitcase and then boarded a shuttle to the parking area.
805
00:53:07.980 --> 00:53:11.920
Blue Section B, she told the driver. Lisa, wearing her
806
00:53:11.980 --> 00:53:15.539
trench coat tightly cinched with her collar turned up, still
807
00:53:15.599 --> 00:53:21.079
wearing dark sunglasses, boarded behind her. Despite Colleen's exhaustion, she
808
00:53:21.179 --> 00:53:25.420
noticed the strangely dressed woman. She had seen her at Starbucks, too.
809
00:53:26.280 --> 00:53:28.880
Her eyelids grew heavy in the warmth of the shuttle bus.
810
00:53:29.960 --> 00:53:33.000
The rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers were lulling her
811
00:53:33.019 --> 00:53:36.900
to sleep. When they reached her parking section, Colleen grabbed
812
00:53:36.940 --> 00:53:40.400
her bag and departed. The woman with the bushy hair
813
00:53:40.539 --> 00:53:44.119
stayed on the bus, but moments later, Colleen quickened her
814
00:53:44.159 --> 00:53:48.659
pace as she heard footsteps approaching her from behind. She
815
00:53:48.719 --> 00:53:51.210
found her car and threw her suitcase in the back.
816
00:53:51.829 --> 00:53:54.550
Grateful that the day was almost over, she started her
817
00:53:54.590 --> 00:53:57.710
car and began putting it in reverse when a woman
818
00:53:57.889 --> 00:54:02.130
sharply rapped on her window. jarring her, wiggling the door handle.
819
00:54:02.949 --> 00:54:05.369
It was the woman in the trench coat and sunglasses.
820
00:54:06.110 --> 00:54:09.989
It was 3 a.m. The sunglasses were certainly not necessary.
821
00:54:10.010 --> 00:54:12.489
The woman pleaded through the glass.
822
00:54:13.050 --> 00:54:15.489
Can you help me, please? My boyfriend was supposed to
823
00:54:15.530 --> 00:54:18.260
pick me up and he's not here. I've been traveling
824
00:54:18.420 --> 00:54:21.000
and it's late. Can you please give me a ride
825
00:54:21.039 --> 00:54:22.079
to the parking office?
826
00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:25.599
No, if you need help, I'll send someone to you.
827
00:54:26.340 --> 00:54:28.059
Colleen began backing up her car.
828
00:54:28.789 --> 00:54:29.989
Can I use your cell phone?
829
00:54:30.570 --> 00:54:33.750
The battery is dead. It wasn't true, but she wanted
830
00:54:33.789 --> 00:54:34.949
to get away from this woman.
831
00:54:35.550 --> 00:54:38.889
Please roll down your window. I can't hear you. Please
832
00:54:38.969 --> 00:54:40.289
roll down your window.
833
00:54:40.309 --> 00:54:44.750
Feeling empathy for the abandoned woman, Colleen lowered her window.
834
00:54:45.550 --> 00:54:48.630
The stranger quickly thrust her hand inside her car and
835
00:54:48.690 --> 00:54:54.210
unleashed a violent burst of pepper spray. Colleen's eyes, nose, mouth,
836
00:54:54.289 --> 00:54:57.150
and throat felt like they were on fire. She was
837
00:54:57.210 --> 00:55:00.199
gasping for air. forcing her eyes to stay open as
838
00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:02.900
she stepped on the gas and headed for the exit
839
00:55:02.940 --> 00:55:05.699
of the parking garage, leaving the woman in her wake.
840
00:55:06.460 --> 00:55:08.780
She told the attendant in the booth about the attack.
841
00:55:09.539 --> 00:55:12.559
The woman kindly handed her two moist paper towels to
842
00:55:12.599 --> 00:55:16.469
press to her eyes and called the police. The airport
843
00:55:16.510 --> 00:55:20.409
police arrived quickly. After Colleen gave them a description of
844
00:55:20.449 --> 00:55:23.349
the woman, they began searching the levels of the parking deck.
845
00:55:24.210 --> 00:55:27.599
They found her and cuffed her. A detective from the
846
00:55:27.659 --> 00:55:31.880
Orlando Police Department began questioning Colleen. He asked if she
847
00:55:31.940 --> 00:55:35.900
knew a woman named Lisa Nowak. Yes, my boyfriend has
848
00:55:35.940 --> 00:55:39.940
a friend, an astronaut with that name. Colleen, her eyes
849
00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:43.639
still watering, began to piece things together. Is that who
850
00:55:43.679 --> 00:55:47.639
attacked me? After he confirmed the news, Colleen asked if
851
00:55:47.699 --> 00:55:50.800
she could call Bill. He didn't answer, but she left
852
00:55:50.840 --> 00:55:53.539
him a message telling him about the attack and that
853
00:55:53.599 --> 00:55:57.369
she was safe. The woman the officers had cuffed wasn't
854
00:55:57.409 --> 00:55:59.989
wearing a trench coat. They weren't sure they had the
855
00:56:00.030 --> 00:56:04.139
right person. When asked for identification, she foraged through her
856
00:56:04.179 --> 00:56:07.679
duffel bag and they saw a rumpled trench coat inside.
857
00:56:08.500 --> 00:56:10.420
They placed her in the back of their car and
858
00:56:10.480 --> 00:56:13.119
drove her to the office where Colleen was being treated
859
00:56:13.179 --> 00:56:18.389
by paramedics. Despite her red, teary eyes, she instantly identified
860
00:56:18.429 --> 00:56:22.190
the woman as her attacker. They checked the attacker's bag
861
00:56:22.210 --> 00:56:26.190
and found a small sledgehammer, a buck knife, Several feet
862
00:56:26.230 --> 00:56:30.349
of clear tubing, NASA patches, a crumpled receipt from the
863
00:56:30.389 --> 00:56:33.389
day's inn, a BB gun, a zip drive, and a
864
00:56:33.429 --> 00:56:36.900
floppy disk. The police would quickly learn that the woman
865
00:56:36.920 --> 00:56:40.619
they'd cuffed was an esteemed member of NASA, Lisa Nowak.
866
00:56:41.639 --> 00:56:45.539
She seemed disoriented and even said aloud, How could this
867
00:56:45.579 --> 00:56:49.429
be happening to me? Detective Chris Becton of the Orlando
868
00:56:49.489 --> 00:56:53.469
Police Department questioned Lisa. She insisted that she had only
869
00:56:53.530 --> 00:56:57.329
wanted to talk to Colleen. She remained stoic and tight-lipped.
870
00:56:58.349 --> 00:57:00.800
He later described the interview as the hardest in his
871
00:57:00.820 --> 00:57:05.139
25-year career, a chess match, he said. He knew Lisa
872
00:57:05.159 --> 00:57:07.119
was smarter than him, and it was hard to stay
873
00:57:07.159 --> 00:57:11.260
ahead of her. Lisa categorized her relationship with Bill as
874
00:57:11.360 --> 00:57:15.500
more than a working relationship, but less than a romantic relationship.
875
00:57:16.300 --> 00:57:19.719
She admitted that after discovering that Bill was involved with Colleen,
876
00:57:20.409 --> 00:57:24.030
Lisa started making plans to travel to Orlando to knowing
877
00:57:24.090 --> 00:57:27.250
Colleen would be arriving on an early morning flight from Houston.
878
00:57:28.150 --> 00:57:31.530
She admitted that she wanted to confront Colleen, but insisted
879
00:57:31.630 --> 00:57:34.710
she never intended to hurt her. She only wanted to
880
00:57:34.809 --> 00:57:38.170
frighten her enough that she would agree to talk. She
881
00:57:38.230 --> 00:57:41.260
wanted to know where Colleen stood with Bill, if she
882
00:57:41.320 --> 00:57:46.619
wanted something long-term. Detective Chris Becton was skeptical, particularly given
883
00:57:46.659 --> 00:57:49.400
the new steel hammer and BB gun Lisa had brought
884
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:52.820
with her. Lisa claimed the BB gun was only meant
885
00:57:52.889 --> 00:57:56.710
to coerce Colleen into speaking with her. It took eight
886
00:57:56.750 --> 00:57:59.789
hours of questioning before Lisa admitted where she had left
887
00:57:59.829 --> 00:58:03.289
her car. It was at the nearby La Quinta Inn.
888
00:58:04.269 --> 00:58:08.130
When police searched it, they found two used NASA diapers,
889
00:58:08.909 --> 00:58:13.510
six pairs of latex gloves, garbage bags, discarded packaging for
890
00:58:13.530 --> 00:58:17.440
the knife and pepper spray, an unused CO2 cartridge for
891
00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:21.090
the BB gun, a shuttle bus schedule, a love letter
892
00:58:21.150 --> 00:58:25.309
written from Lisa to Bill Opheline, pages of emails between
893
00:58:25.369 --> 00:58:30.690
Bill and Colleen Shipman, 69 orange-covered pills that were not
894
00:58:30.730 --> 00:58:35.250
a controlled substance, MapQuest directions from Houston, Texas to the
895
00:58:35.309 --> 00:58:40.710
Orlando International Airport, several Orlando-area maps, and a piece of
896
00:58:40.750 --> 00:58:45.090
paper with Colleen's home address and written directions, complete with
897
00:58:45.170 --> 00:58:50.110
GPS coordinates. The detectives were particularly confused about the diapers.
898
00:58:50.920 --> 00:58:53.460
They didn't know they were adult diapers and feared that
899
00:58:53.559 --> 00:58:56.659
she had brought a child with her. When they questioned
900
00:58:56.719 --> 00:58:59.280
Lisa about them, she said that she had worn them
901
00:58:59.340 --> 00:59:01.590
so she wouldn't have to stop to use the bathroom.
902
00:59:02.730 --> 00:59:08.530
Astronauts wear specially designed diapers, officially called Maximum Absorbency Garments,
903
00:59:08.690 --> 00:59:12.650
or MAGs. during launch and re-entry because they can spend
904
00:59:12.690 --> 00:59:16.489
hours strapped into their seats without access to a bathroom.
905
00:59:17.409 --> 00:59:21.059
Once in microgravity, fluid also shifts from the lower body
906
00:59:21.599 --> 00:59:24.260
toward the chest and the head, causing the body to
907
00:59:24.500 --> 00:59:28.039
produce more urine than it normally would. They are known
908
00:59:28.079 --> 00:59:31.500
to be the most absorbent diaper made of the finest materials.
909
00:59:32.559 --> 00:59:35.590
The items collected from Lisa's vehicle were enough to make
910
00:59:35.630 --> 00:59:39.969
law enforcement believe her intent was nefarious. She planned to
911
00:59:40.010 --> 00:59:43.710
kill and dismember Colleen. She was booked in the Orange
912
00:59:43.750 --> 00:59:48.619
County Jail for attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery,
913
00:59:49.119 --> 00:59:53.019
destruction of evidence and battery. She was kept away from
914
00:59:53.059 --> 00:59:57.480
the other inmates in protective custody. NASA sent officials to
915
00:59:57.559 --> 01:00:01.460
Florida to help Lisa. She had the dubious distinction of
916
01:00:01.500 --> 01:00:06.070
being the first NASA astronaut arrested. She wasn't the first
917
01:00:06.110 --> 01:00:09.230
that had ever been in trouble. However, NASA worked hard
918
01:00:09.269 --> 01:00:11.710
to protect the image of their astronauts, who they liked
919
01:00:11.750 --> 01:00:16.360
to present a squeaky clean image. We'll be back after
920
01:00:16.409 --> 01:00:16.780
a break.
921
01:00:19.739 --> 01:00:27.519
Music Colleen was badly shaken. She tried calling Bill again,
922
01:00:27.539 --> 01:00:31.360
and this time he answered, comforting her and promising he'd
923
01:00:31.380 --> 01:00:34.690
be there soon. In the coming days, Colleen filed a
924
01:00:34.730 --> 01:00:38.130
restraining order. In the paperwork, she claimed that Lisa had
925
01:00:38.190 --> 01:00:41.730
stalked her for two months. She wrote that investigators told
926
01:00:41.789 --> 01:00:45.050
her that Lisa was extremely unstable and feels like a
927
01:00:45.139 --> 01:00:49.559
scorned woman. But by February 5th, Colleen requested that the
928
01:00:49.599 --> 01:00:53.590
restraining order be dropped. The next day at her first
929
01:00:53.690 --> 01:00:57.610
court hearing, Lisa seemed deeply embarrassed, wearing a prison jumpsuit.
930
01:00:58.449 --> 01:01:01.210
She hung her head, didn't make eye contact, and spoke
931
01:01:01.250 --> 01:01:05.050
to the judge in hushed tones. Her attorney argued that
932
01:01:05.110 --> 01:01:08.420
the charges against her were an egregious overreach and pleaded
933
01:01:08.460 --> 01:01:11.260
with the judge to give her bail and allow her
934
01:01:11.320 --> 01:01:15.099
to return to Texas to her job with NASA. The
935
01:01:15.139 --> 01:01:17.099
judge set Lisa's bond at $ 15, 500 and ordered her to
936
01:01:17.159 --> 01:01:22.579
wear an ankle monitor, allowing her to return home to
937
01:01:22.619 --> 01:01:26.099
Houston while the case was pending. The judge cautioned Lisa
938
01:01:26.139 --> 01:01:29.960
that she must not have any contact with Colleen Shipman.
939
01:01:30.429 --> 01:01:33.800
But before Lisa could be released, prosecutors added a far
940
01:01:33.860 --> 01:01:39.570
more serious charge, attempted first-degree murder. If convicted, she faced
941
01:01:39.630 --> 01:01:42.989
up to 30 years in prison. Lisa was brought before
942
01:01:43.030 --> 01:01:46.429
the judge for a second hearing that afternoon. Her bond
943
01:01:46.530 --> 01:01:52.150
was increased to $ 25, 500, which she posted. She was released
944
01:01:52.210 --> 01:01:54.969
later that day, spending the night at an airport hotel
945
01:01:55.030 --> 01:01:58.449
before heading back to Houston in the morning. Her attorney
946
01:01:58.530 --> 01:02:01.909
hired a public relations expert to handle the press in
947
01:02:01.949 --> 01:02:06.190
an attempt to save Lisa's reputation. Bill went to Florida
948
01:02:06.269 --> 01:02:09.250
to comfort Colleen and be interviewed by the Orlando Police
949
01:02:09.269 --> 01:02:14.110
Department detective, Michael Maresci. The questioning made him feel like
950
01:02:14.309 --> 01:02:17.889
he was in the hot seat. What is your relationship
951
01:02:17.909 --> 01:02:18.889
with Colleen Shipman?
952
01:02:19.539 --> 01:02:21.590
I consider Colleen Shipman my girlfriend.
953
01:02:22.010 --> 01:02:24.190
And how long has that been your relationship with her?
954
01:02:24.829 --> 01:02:28.650
What you can consider my exclusive girlfriend, meaning a serious relationship,
955
01:02:28.989 --> 01:02:32.150
about a month. We met each other about three months ago.
956
01:02:32.170 --> 01:02:34.949
I told Lisa that I'd met Colleen and I had
957
01:02:34.989 --> 01:02:37.599
fallen in love, and I was wanting to pursue an
958
01:02:37.659 --> 01:02:39.599
exclusive relationship with Colleen.
959
01:02:40.239 --> 01:02:41.659
How did she react to that?
960
01:02:42.199 --> 01:02:44.699
She seemed a little disappointed, but she seemed to be
961
01:02:44.739 --> 01:02:45.599
accepting of that.
962
01:02:46.280 --> 01:02:47.590
Did she continue to call you?
963
01:02:48.269 --> 01:02:51.190
Daily. I wasn't always receptive to the phone call.
964
01:02:51.710 --> 01:02:55.349
Would she leave messages? Yeah. How did the messages seem?
965
01:02:55.989 --> 01:02:59.730
They were nice and extremely friendly and not adversarial. Just
966
01:02:59.929 --> 01:03:02.429
indicative of the type of person she is. Just a
967
01:03:02.469 --> 01:03:03.210
friendly person.
968
01:03:04.250 --> 01:03:07.170
So from the time you told her about Colleen until today,
969
01:03:07.250 --> 01:03:09.710
was there anything that was out of the norm for
970
01:03:09.750 --> 01:03:10.929
her behavior towards you?
971
01:03:11.849 --> 01:03:15.789
Nothing. She seemed accepting of my position with Colleen. She
972
01:03:15.849 --> 01:03:18.800
wanted to maintain a close friendship. We had an event
973
01:03:18.840 --> 01:03:21.940
we were going to be in together, the MS-150 bike
974
01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:24.579
ride in April, and we had agreed to train on
975
01:03:24.599 --> 01:03:27.280
that together. We tried to go to the gym together
976
01:03:27.300 --> 01:03:29.460
to work out and get in shape for the ride.
977
01:03:30.469 --> 01:03:33.840
When investigators asked Bills who defined what his relationship with
978
01:03:33.889 --> 01:03:35.989
Lisa had been, he struggled.
979
01:03:36.789 --> 01:03:40.269
Well, I, yeah, I don't, it's hard to consider her
980
01:03:40.289 --> 01:03:44.210
a girlfriend. She was an ex. I, I wouldn't, she
981
01:03:44.250 --> 01:03:47.559
was an ex-interest, I guess is what I would say. Yes,
982
01:03:47.639 --> 01:03:50.480
we had a relationship, but you know, I never really
983
01:03:50.519 --> 01:03:53.340
said the word girlfriend. I would say that we were
984
01:03:53.539 --> 01:03:58.309
somewhat exclusive. Nobody prohibited anything, but I would consider it
985
01:03:58.489 --> 01:04:00.289
exclusive for a period of time.
986
01:04:01.150 --> 01:04:03.730
You said earlier that you consider Lisa your best friend
987
01:04:03.769 --> 01:04:04.510
in the program.
988
01:04:04.530 --> 01:04:07.570
Yeah, I would consider Lisa one of my best friends
989
01:04:07.630 --> 01:04:09.449
at NASA. We do a lot together.
990
01:04:09.469 --> 01:04:11.869
Would she consider you the same way?
991
01:04:12.619 --> 01:04:15.679
I would say she probably considers me, if not her best,
992
01:04:15.960 --> 01:04:17.400
one of her best friends as well.
993
01:04:18.420 --> 01:04:20.579
Looking back now on the last few weeks, do you
994
01:04:20.619 --> 01:04:23.170
have any theory as to why Lisa did what she did?
995
01:04:24.110 --> 01:04:27.110
I would have never predicted this. Her behavior indicated to
996
01:04:27.150 --> 01:04:29.710
me that she was stable and accepting of what I
997
01:04:29.769 --> 01:04:33.050
told her with Colleen. She had actually wished me a
998
01:04:33.090 --> 01:04:35.889
nice weekend, knowing Colleen was going to spend it with me.
999
01:04:36.610 --> 01:04:38.679
We made a plan to go flying, and we had
1000
01:04:38.719 --> 01:04:41.679
made a plan to fly together, I believe, Wednesday, tomorrow.
1001
01:04:42.679 --> 01:04:47.230
Would you describe her as violent? No, no. No opus
1002
01:04:47.269 --> 01:04:48.650
that you've ever seen from her?
1003
01:04:49.130 --> 01:04:54.110
No, never. She seemed extremely level-headed and non-emotional. She didn't
1004
01:04:54.210 --> 01:04:57.030
flare up. She didn't have a temper. I'm trying to
1005
01:04:57.050 --> 01:05:00.070
remember ever seeing her even angry, and I didn't ever
1006
01:05:00.139 --> 01:05:02.219
see her even angry in the years I've known her.
1007
01:05:03.179 --> 01:05:06.300
When NASA head Michael Griffin was on Capitol Hill for
1008
01:05:06.360 --> 01:05:09.780
budget hearings, he was asked to answer for Lisa's mental
1009
01:05:09.800 --> 01:05:14.130
breakdown falling through the cracks. Griffin defended the astronauts in
1010
01:05:14.150 --> 01:05:16.969
the program but acknowledged that Lisa was going through a
1011
01:05:17.010 --> 01:05:21.210
challenging time. He countered that she was the first astronaut
1012
01:05:21.250 --> 01:05:24.530
in his 30 years with the organization that had ever
1013
01:05:24.590 --> 01:05:27.159
had an issue. He made it clear that there was
1014
01:05:27.260 --> 01:05:30.860
help available for anyone in NASA that was having mental
1015
01:05:30.900 --> 01:05:35.039
health struggles. The problem that Griffin didn't acknowledge, however, was
1016
01:05:35.079 --> 01:05:38.139
that among astronauts who were hoping to be launched into space,
1017
01:05:38.940 --> 01:05:42.250
seeking help could be used against them. when selecting who
1018
01:05:42.289 --> 01:05:45.449
would be given the next mission. In the event that
1019
01:05:45.469 --> 01:05:49.170
an astronaut did happen to lose it in space, NASA
1020
01:05:49.289 --> 01:05:54.570
had a contingency plan. Crews carried a 1,000-page binder covering
1021
01:05:54.630 --> 01:05:59.469
almost every emergency imaginable. If an astronaut became a danger
1022
01:05:59.489 --> 01:06:03.320
to themselves or the crew, the instructions called for restraining
1023
01:06:03.360 --> 01:06:07.000
their wrists and ankles with duct tape, securing them with
1024
01:06:07.039 --> 01:06:12.059
a bungee cord, and, if necessary, administering a tranquilizer or
1025
01:06:12.280 --> 01:06:16.369
antipsychotic medication such as Valium or Heldol.
1026
01:06:16.750 --> 01:06:18.630
That sounds pretty similar to what they did on a
1027
01:06:18.690 --> 01:06:20.230
commercial flight pretty recently.
1028
01:06:20.250 --> 01:06:25.829
That was a wild story. After her arrest, Lisa became
1029
01:06:25.869 --> 01:06:29.570
a pariah. The Lady's Home Journal removed an article featuring
1030
01:06:29.630 --> 01:06:33.050
her from their Mother's Day issue. She became the butt
1031
01:06:33.090 --> 01:06:35.739
of many jokes on late night TV and her name
1032
01:06:35.760 --> 01:06:40.219
was featured in all of the supermarket tabloids. although many
1033
01:06:40.409 --> 01:06:43.989
also came to her defense, including her former astronaut classmate
1034
01:06:44.090 --> 01:06:48.550
John Harrington. Like anybody else in the class, she didn't
1035
01:06:48.590 --> 01:06:53.250
stick out. She was a dedicated, hardworking person. Unfortunately, the
1036
01:06:53.309 --> 01:06:58.250
attention surrounding Lisa minimizes what she accomplished. Last year, she
1037
01:06:58.329 --> 01:07:01.079
hopped aboard the space shuttle, not knowing if she would
1038
01:07:01.119 --> 01:07:04.500
come home, and you can't minimize the risk that she's
1039
01:07:04.539 --> 01:07:08.380
willing to put forth. although some astronauts called her prickly
1040
01:07:08.519 --> 01:07:11.079
and hard to get to know. One accused her of
1041
01:07:11.139 --> 01:07:14.119
being single-minded as to her own success and not a
1042
01:07:14.139 --> 01:07:18.280
team player. He said, Lisa had a difficult time finding
1043
01:07:18.300 --> 01:07:22.690
her way around the community here. Mark Kelly, Mr. Gabby Giffords,
1044
01:07:22.809 --> 01:07:26.969
called Lisa introverted. Quote, she kept to herself a lot,
1045
01:07:27.030 --> 01:07:29.789
but she was a smart, hard worker who prepared well.
1046
01:07:30.570 --> 01:07:32.239
If she was going to do a job, she was
1047
01:07:32.280 --> 01:07:34.500
going to do it right, but I do not think
1048
01:07:34.539 --> 01:07:38.550
she's a good team player. She exhibited bad expedition behavior
1049
01:07:38.610 --> 01:07:41.889
because she was selfish. She would only do the tasks
1050
01:07:41.929 --> 01:07:44.190
in her mission description and never went out of her
1051
01:07:44.230 --> 01:07:47.730
way to help other crew members. Mark added as an
1052
01:07:47.929 --> 01:07:51.510
afterthought to soften his words, She's a good mother. But
1053
01:07:51.550 --> 01:07:54.170
for some reason, Rich told my sister-in-law that I was
1054
01:07:54.230 --> 01:07:56.969
Lisa's best friend. I don't even like her.
1055
01:07:56.989 --> 01:07:58.309
That's a little harsh.
1056
01:07:58.369 --> 01:08:01.750
I'll say. The parishioners at her church prayed for her
1057
01:08:01.829 --> 01:08:03.849
when she was in space and they prayed for her
1058
01:08:03.909 --> 01:08:07.469
now that she was in trouble. Lisa's family released a
1059
01:08:07.510 --> 01:08:10.809
statement saying that they were saddened and extremely concerned by
1060
01:08:10.849 --> 01:08:14.679
the allegations and that their primary focus was Lisa's health
1061
01:08:14.800 --> 01:08:18.180
and well-being. They described her as a caring and dedicated
1062
01:08:18.220 --> 01:08:21.319
mother and said the events were completely out of character
1063
01:08:21.340 --> 01:08:24.260
and had come as a tremendous shock to the family.
1064
01:08:24.279 --> 01:08:26.979
They asked the public to keep an open mind while
1065
01:08:27.010 --> 01:08:30.409
the facts were emerging, adding, We are anxious to allow
1066
01:08:30.449 --> 01:08:33.069
the facts to develop so that we can better understand
1067
01:08:33.729 --> 01:08:38.630
what happened and why. Lisa's sister, Andrea Rose, told People magazine,
1068
01:08:39.369 --> 01:08:41.810
We knew Lisa was under a lot of stress, but
1069
01:08:41.829 --> 01:08:44.550
there is no way of knowing how a particular person
1070
01:08:45.010 --> 01:08:48.149
will react to stress. We love Lisa and we're worried
1071
01:08:48.170 --> 01:08:51.569
about her well-being. Andrea said that the deaths of her
1072
01:08:51.630 --> 01:08:55.649
friends aboard Columbia had deeply impacted Lisa, that she'd never
1073
01:08:55.710 --> 01:08:59.470
gotten over it. When Lisa returned home to Houston, news
1074
01:08:59.529 --> 01:09:01.850
vans lined her street trying to get a peek of her.
1075
01:09:02.649 --> 01:09:05.579
Her friends and neighbors were protective of her, delivering her
1076
01:09:05.640 --> 01:09:09.720
meals or whatever she needed. Lisa's favorite local restaurant held
1077
01:09:09.760 --> 01:09:13.420
a fundraiser in honor to raise money for her legal defense.
1078
01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:17.939
On March 2nd, prosecutors declined to pursue the attempted murder
1079
01:09:17.979 --> 01:09:21.899
charge against Lisa, concluding there wasn't enough evidence to prove
1080
01:09:21.930 --> 01:09:25.470
her intent in a trial. Lisa was relieved to learn
1081
01:09:25.510 --> 01:09:28.470
that the attempted murder charge was off the table, but
1082
01:09:28.510 --> 01:09:33.529
she still faced serious charges, including battery, attempted kidnapping and
1083
01:09:33.569 --> 01:09:37.579
burglary with assault using a weapon, which carried the possibility
1084
01:09:37.619 --> 01:09:42.680
of life in prison. Her trial was set for July 30th, 2007.
1085
01:09:43.090 --> 01:09:46.090
Days after the murder charge was dropped, Lisa's contract with
1086
01:09:46.149 --> 01:09:50.550
NASA was officially terminated. She would return to the Navy, however,
1087
01:09:50.569 --> 01:09:53.729
to work as a curriculum developer at the Naval Air
1088
01:09:53.770 --> 01:09:56.930
Station in Corpus Christi. At the end of May, Bill
1089
01:09:56.989 --> 01:10:00.579
Opheline was told that his contract with NASA was also over.
1090
01:10:01.560 --> 01:10:04.420
He hadn't explicitly broken any rules, but the scandal and
1091
01:10:04.439 --> 01:10:08.239
attention surrounding his personal life had become a distraction for
1092
01:10:08.279 --> 01:10:12.359
an institution that placed high value on professionalism. and its
1093
01:10:12.439 --> 01:10:16.260
public image, they both also faced the possibility of a
1094
01:10:16.560 --> 01:10:20.560
court-martial from the Navy. Despite her arrest and dismissal from
1095
01:10:20.590 --> 01:10:24.250
the Astronaut Corps, Lisa received one final honor from NASA.
1096
01:10:24.989 --> 01:10:28.350
In June 2007, she was awarded the Space Flight Medal
1097
01:10:28.850 --> 01:10:32.260
for her work aboard the shuttle the previous year, despite
1098
01:10:32.279 --> 01:10:34.640
some criticism that her name should have been removed from
1099
01:10:34.680 --> 01:10:39.140
the list. As prosecutors and Lisa's defense team began battling
1100
01:10:39.180 --> 01:10:42.779
it out in pre-trial hearings, information about the evidence collected
1101
01:10:42.800 --> 01:10:47.319
during the investigation leaked to the public. Inside Lisa's car,
1102
01:10:47.359 --> 01:10:50.300
they found pepper spray knives, a mallet, and a BB gun,
1103
01:10:50.569 --> 01:10:53.989
as well as makeup, tampons, and contact lenses. She was
1104
01:10:54.050 --> 01:10:57.890
also carrying mementos from Bill's December spaceflight, including a magnet
1105
01:10:57.989 --> 01:11:02.659
and a commemorative coin. Investigators examined two flash drives and
1106
01:11:02.680 --> 01:11:04.859
a floppy disk found in the car. Most of the
1107
01:11:04.920 --> 01:11:09.140
files on the flash drives were mundane, including NASA documents,
1108
01:11:09.199 --> 01:11:13.939
family photographs, and thousands of work-related spreadsheets. But the floppy
1109
01:11:13.979 --> 01:11:18.670
disk was another story. It contained 16 images, 15 of
1110
01:11:18.710 --> 01:11:23.109
them depicting a partially undressed woman, many involving bondage or
1111
01:11:23.170 --> 01:11:27.270
women in astronaut sleep garments. Police could not identify the
1112
01:11:27.310 --> 01:11:30.359
woman in the images or even establish that the floppy
1113
01:11:30.380 --> 01:11:33.340
disk had actually belonged to Lisa. None of the three
1114
01:11:33.420 --> 01:11:37.279
storage devices contained evidence directly connected to her trip to Orlando,
1115
01:11:37.319 --> 01:11:40.310
suggesting they may simply have already been in the car
1116
01:11:40.350 --> 01:11:43.430
when Lisa left Houston. She was known to be a
1117
01:11:43.449 --> 01:11:45.590
bit of a pack rat, and I think this actually
1118
01:11:45.630 --> 01:11:49.649
was her husband's car, so it's possible that it belonged
1119
01:11:49.689 --> 01:11:49.970
to him.
1120
01:11:49.989 --> 01:11:53.229
The floppy disk detail is very strange.
1121
01:11:54.090 --> 01:11:56.380
Weeks before her trial was set to take place, Lisa
1122
01:11:56.420 --> 01:12:02.399
considered an insanity defense. Two Houston psychiatrists evaluated her mental health.
1123
01:12:03.079 --> 01:12:07.979
They diagnosed her with several conditions, including obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,
1124
01:12:08.659 --> 01:12:12.420
major depression, and a brief psychiatric episode involving symptoms of
1125
01:12:12.500 --> 01:12:17.420
both mania and depression. One psychiatrist also concluded that Lisa
1126
01:12:17.439 --> 01:12:21.560
had Asperger's syndrome. Interestingly, some of the traits noted in
1127
01:12:21.600 --> 01:12:26.899
those diagnoses, including intense focus, attention to detail, and persistence,
1128
01:12:27.079 --> 01:12:30.260
may have been the qualities that helped Lisa succeed in
1129
01:12:30.279 --> 01:12:34.840
the highly structured and demanding world of NASA. The psychiatrists
1130
01:12:34.899 --> 01:12:38.659
reported that Lisa had suffered from insomnia, significant weight loss,
1131
01:12:38.859 --> 01:12:43.810
and irrational behavior, and noted the strain of her marital separation,
1132
01:12:44.289 --> 01:12:48.090
her limited support system, and her difficulty confiding in family
1133
01:12:48.170 --> 01:12:53.369
and friends. Lisa's breakdown also exposed problems with NASA's approach
1134
01:12:53.430 --> 01:12:59.250
to mental health. After astronaut candidates underwent their initial psychological screening,
1135
01:12:59.289 --> 01:13:03.470
they weren't required to undergo another, even after life-altering events
1136
01:13:03.590 --> 01:13:07.380
such as losing seven fellow astronauts during a mission. The
1137
01:13:08.270 --> 01:13:11.380
insanity defense was problematic for many because Lisa was such
1138
01:13:11.399 --> 01:13:16.399
a high-functioning individual. Dr. Tony Werner said, the problem with
1139
01:13:16.420 --> 01:13:19.199
the insanity defense with her is that she did so
1140
01:13:19.239 --> 01:13:23.380
much planning beforehand and her actions were more based on jealousy.
1141
01:13:23.399 --> 01:13:28.649
It's not really based on delusion or psychotic thinking. Lisa's
1142
01:13:28.710 --> 01:13:31.609
attorney asked the judge to throw out her police interview
1143
01:13:31.770 --> 01:13:35.460
arguing that her Miranda rights had been violated. He also
1144
01:13:35.520 --> 01:13:39.439
challenged the search of her car. When Detective Becton asked
1145
01:13:39.520 --> 01:13:42.920
Lisa for permission to search it, her response was little
1146
01:13:42.979 --> 01:13:47.159
more than a mumbled, which her attorney argued was not
1147
01:13:47.239 --> 01:13:51.020
clear consent. Lisa also said that during a portion of
1148
01:13:51.079 --> 01:13:54.939
her interrogation that was not recorded, she asked for an attorney.
1149
01:13:55.569 --> 01:13:59.869
but Detective Becton continued questioning her. The judge ultimately ruled
1150
01:13:59.909 --> 01:14:02.569
that Lisa's police interview could not be used at the
1151
01:14:02.609 --> 01:14:05.229
trial and that the evidence found in her car should
1152
01:14:05.289 --> 01:14:09.770
be excluded. Prosecutors appealed, delaying the trial while a higher
1153
01:14:09.880 --> 01:14:13.560
court reviewed the decision. The appeals court later agreed that
1154
01:14:13.600 --> 01:14:17.720
Lisa's statements to police should remain excluded, but ruled that
1155
01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:21.430
prosecutors could use the evidence found in her car. The
1156
01:14:21.489 --> 01:14:24.930
trial was set to start in December 2009, almost three
1157
01:14:24.989 --> 01:14:28.329
years since the attack in Orlando, but in November, Lisa
1158
01:14:28.430 --> 01:14:31.289
decided to take a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to
1159
01:14:31.310 --> 01:14:34.760
the lesser charges of third-degree felony burglary of a car
1160
01:14:35.149 --> 01:14:40.380
and misdemeanor battery. The attempted kidnapping charge was dropped. As
1161
01:14:40.439 --> 01:14:43.180
the victim, Colleen had a say and asked the judge
1162
01:14:43.279 --> 01:14:47.460
to impose the maximum sentence to Lisa. Fighting back tears,
1163
01:14:47.619 --> 01:14:51.029
she told the judge... Shortly after I turned 30 years old,
1164
01:14:51.250 --> 01:14:53.710
Lisa Nowak hunted me down and attacked me in a
1165
01:14:53.810 --> 01:14:57.970
dark parking lot. Her attack was part of a well-researched, well-planned,
1166
01:14:58.170 --> 01:15:02.149
deliberate crime. I know in my heart, when Lisa Nowak
1167
01:15:02.220 --> 01:15:04.760
attacked me, that she was going to kill me. I
1168
01:15:04.819 --> 01:15:08.140
saw it in her eyes, a blood-chilling expression of limitless
1169
01:15:08.479 --> 01:15:12.979
rage and glee. It's my understanding that Lisa had researched murder,
1170
01:15:13.319 --> 01:15:17.819
corpse dismemberment, as well as disguises and trace evidence. and
1171
01:15:17.880 --> 01:15:21.279
I am 100% certain that Lisa Nowak came here to
1172
01:15:21.340 --> 01:15:24.100
murder me, and I believe that she never thought she'd
1173
01:15:24.119 --> 01:15:26.399
get caught. It was only by the grace of God
1174
01:15:26.579 --> 01:15:30.199
and quick footwork that I escaped. Colleen went on to
1175
01:15:30.260 --> 01:15:33.180
describe the physical and emotional toll the attack had taken
1176
01:15:33.260 --> 01:15:36.619
on her. She suffered from high blood pressure, disease spells,
1177
01:15:36.739 --> 01:15:41.500
chest pains, uncontrollable shaking, migraines, and nightmares. She said that
1178
01:15:41.560 --> 01:15:45.000
she had developed PTSD and ultimately resigned from the Air
1179
01:15:45.060 --> 01:15:48.420
Force and moved to Alaska with Bill. She said that
1180
01:15:48.460 --> 01:15:51.479
she'd also changed the way that she lived. She barricaded
1181
01:15:51.539 --> 01:15:55.399
her doors, installed an alarm system, purchased a shotgun, and
1182
01:15:55.460 --> 01:15:58.890
obtained a concealed carry permit, all in an effort to
1183
01:15:58.930 --> 01:16:02.729
feel safe again. None of it worked. The nightmares continued.
1184
01:16:03.210 --> 01:16:06.010
Colleen rejected Lisa's claim that she had driven to Orlando
1185
01:16:06.109 --> 01:16:09.090
simply because she wanted to talk. She pointed out that
1186
01:16:09.130 --> 01:16:12.069
Lisa followed her through the airport for hours and had
1187
01:16:12.189 --> 01:16:15.750
plenty of opportunity to approach her there. I listened to
1188
01:16:15.789 --> 01:16:18.510
Colleen's statement. I will put it in show notes if
1189
01:16:18.529 --> 01:16:20.810
you want to listen to it. She said a part
1190
01:16:20.880 --> 01:16:23.520
about she had Googled course dismemberment.
1191
01:16:23.539 --> 01:16:24.680
I was going to ask about that, yeah.
1192
01:16:24.819 --> 01:16:26.039
I don't believe that's true.
1193
01:16:26.060 --> 01:16:26.619
Okay.
1194
01:16:26.680 --> 01:16:29.020
She might have heard it from someone as hearsay, but
1195
01:16:29.659 --> 01:16:31.500
I do not believe that ever happened.
1196
01:16:31.600 --> 01:16:31.840
Okay.
1197
01:16:32.319 --> 01:16:35.340
Several friends spoke on Lisa's behalf, calling her a wonderful
1198
01:16:35.380 --> 01:16:40.220
parent and a trusted, hardworking teammate. Before sentencing her, they
1199
01:16:40.239 --> 01:16:43.560
gave Lisa an opportunity to speak. She looked at Colleen
1200
01:16:43.619 --> 01:16:46.729
Shipman and said, I'm glad to have the opportunity to
1201
01:16:46.779 --> 01:16:50.350
apologize to you, Ms. Shipman, in person. I am sincerely
1202
01:16:50.409 --> 01:16:53.750
sorry for causing fear and misunderstanding and all of the
1203
01:16:53.810 --> 01:16:57.270
intense public exposure that you have suffered. I hope very
1204
01:16:57.310 --> 01:16:59.819
much that we can all move forward from this with
1205
01:16:59.899 --> 01:17:04.380
privacy and peace. The judge sentenced Lisa to two days
1206
01:17:04.460 --> 01:17:07.300
in jail, which she had served when she was first arrested.
1207
01:17:07.720 --> 01:17:10.689
She was also placed on probation for one year ordered
1208
01:17:10.699 --> 01:17:14.140
to complete 50 hours of community service in addition to
1209
01:17:14.199 --> 01:17:18.829
an 8-hour anger management course. And finally, Lisa was prohibited
1210
01:17:18.850 --> 01:17:22.090
from having any further contact with either Colleen or Bill,
1211
01:17:22.390 --> 01:17:25.550
and she was also required to write Colleen a sincere
1212
01:17:25.729 --> 01:17:29.060
letter of apology. It was a light sentence for a
1213
01:17:29.140 --> 01:17:33.699
crime once considered attempted first-degree murder. Instead, nearly three years
1214
01:17:33.819 --> 01:17:36.359
after her arrest, Lisa walked out of the courtroom without
1215
01:17:36.399 --> 01:17:39.039
having to spend another night in jail, but she still
1216
01:17:39.079 --> 01:17:42.319
had to answer to the Navy. In August 2010, Lisa
1217
01:17:42.359 --> 01:17:45.529
went before a three-member Navy board that would weigh in
1218
01:17:45.750 --> 01:17:48.970
on what should happen to her military career. This wasn't
1219
01:17:49.010 --> 01:17:52.789
a court-martial. Lisa had already been convicted in civilian court.
1220
01:17:53.149 --> 01:17:55.590
The question now was whether she should be allowed to
1221
01:17:55.630 --> 01:17:59.430
remain in the Navy. The board unanimously recommended that Lisa
1222
01:17:59.470 --> 01:18:03.680
be forced out with an other-than-honorable discharge and be forced
1223
01:18:03.699 --> 01:18:06.600
to give up her rank. The final decision, however, belonged
1224
01:18:06.619 --> 01:18:09.590
to the Secretary of the Navy. The same time that
1225
01:18:09.630 --> 01:18:11.930
Lisa was at the hearing, Colleen and Bill were on
1226
01:18:11.970 --> 01:18:15.350
their honeymoon in Bora Bora. Nearly a year after the
1227
01:18:15.390 --> 01:18:19.119
Navy hearing, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Juan Garcia announced
1228
01:18:19.319 --> 01:18:21.859
that Lisa would be forced to retire from the Navy
1229
01:18:22.220 --> 01:18:26.199
with an other-than-honorable discharge and would lose one rank from
1230
01:18:26.260 --> 01:18:30.359
captain to commander. Garcia said Lisa's conduct had fallen well
1231
01:18:30.460 --> 01:18:33.279
short of what was expected of a senior Navy officer
1232
01:18:33.729 --> 01:18:36.630
and showed a complete disregard for the well-being of another
1233
01:18:36.689 --> 01:18:40.359
service member. her retirement became official on September 1, 2011,
1234
01:18:40.359 --> 01:18:45.260
ending her 26-year career in the Navy. One point that
1235
01:18:45.300 --> 01:18:47.930
Lisa wanted to make clear is that she didn't wear
1236
01:18:47.970 --> 01:18:50.560
a diaper during the drive from Houston to her as
1237
01:18:50.600 --> 01:18:53.979
the media had reported. There were no MAGs in her car.
1238
01:18:54.399 --> 01:18:58.720
There were children's diapers, both used and unused. She claimed
1239
01:18:58.760 --> 01:19:01.619
that while police searched her car, several used diapers were
1240
01:19:01.659 --> 01:19:04.239
found in a trash bag. They'd been used when the
1241
01:19:04.279 --> 01:19:09.060
family had evacuated in 2005 during Hurricane Rita. She said
1242
01:19:09.100 --> 01:19:11.550
that no one had worn the diapers, but they'd held
1243
01:19:11.609 --> 01:19:14.409
them and urinated in them. The look on your face
1244
01:19:14.470 --> 01:19:14.869
right now.
1245
01:19:14.890 --> 01:19:18.350
I know, I'm just really confused by this detail, but.
1246
01:19:19.199 --> 01:19:22.199
It's very strange because she's like, yeah, the diapers were
1247
01:19:22.239 --> 01:19:25.319
in the trash bag for two years in my car.
1248
01:19:25.340 --> 01:19:29.069
Yeah, that doesn't make a whole... That's almost worse than...
1249
01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:30.760
Than using the diapers.
1250
01:19:30.779 --> 01:19:33.199
Because I feel like the thing that people, when we
1251
01:19:33.239 --> 01:19:36.600
talked about the diapers so much, like for an astronaut,
1252
01:19:36.659 --> 01:19:39.199
it's like, well, yeah, of course you wear this, you know,
1253
01:19:39.279 --> 01:19:42.449
really good absorbent diaper when you can't use a bathroom.
1254
01:19:42.810 --> 01:19:44.609
I mean, honestly, it makes a little bit of sense.
1255
01:19:44.670 --> 01:19:46.670
I've been on a lot of road trips and, you know,
1256
01:19:47.149 --> 01:19:49.170
having to stop to go to the bathroom is not,
1257
01:19:49.210 --> 01:19:51.810
you know, the ideal way to get there as quickly.
1258
01:19:51.569 --> 01:19:55.109
As you'd like. Yeah, but the police did think that
1259
01:19:55.130 --> 01:19:59.149
they were the astronaut diapers, so I'm not sure if
1260
01:19:59.170 --> 01:20:01.270
this is Lisa just trying to save some embarrassment.
1261
01:20:01.289 --> 01:20:02.310
Yeah, could be.
1262
01:20:02.909 --> 01:20:05.590
Colleen and Bill live in Alaska with their young son.
1263
01:20:05.609 --> 01:20:09.149
Lisa and Rich divorced in 2008. She lives a quiet
1264
01:20:09.210 --> 01:20:13.739
life in Houston. Lisa Nowak's arrest forced NASA to confront
1265
01:20:13.800 --> 01:20:17.659
some uncomfortable questions about its culture. A four-month independent review
1266
01:20:17.739 --> 01:20:22.729
found reports of heavy drinking by astronauts directly before flights,
1267
01:20:23.130 --> 01:20:27.510
insufficient mental health support, and surprisingly, once astronauts were selected,
1268
01:20:27.630 --> 01:20:31.770
they were not routinely evaluated for psychological problems for the
1269
01:20:31.810 --> 01:20:34.989
remainder of their careers, regardless of what might be going
1270
01:20:35.449 --> 01:20:39.760
on in their personal lives. NASA later investigated the drinking allegation,
1271
01:20:39.979 --> 01:20:43.560
but could not substantiate it. The review also found that
1272
01:20:43.619 --> 01:20:47.270
flight surgeons sometimes felt their concerns about an astronaut's health
1273
01:20:47.329 --> 01:20:52.050
or fitness were disregarded by NASA leadership. Former NASA psychiatrist
1274
01:20:52.289 --> 01:20:56.989
Patricia Santee went further, saying doctors' recommendations were often pushed
1275
01:20:57.050 --> 01:21:00.460
aside if acting on them might damage NASA's public image.
1276
01:21:00.979 --> 01:21:03.859
She described NASA as having a culture of denial and
1277
01:21:03.899 --> 01:21:07.220
said people inside the agency had been raising these concerns
1278
01:21:07.260 --> 01:21:12.050
for decades. NASA's internal investigation concluded that co-workers and flight
1279
01:21:12.090 --> 01:21:15.670
surgeons had not recognized signs that Lisa was headed toward
1280
01:21:15.710 --> 01:21:18.760
a breakdown, but there had been changes in her behavior.
1281
01:21:19.140 --> 01:21:21.300
She was going through a lot. She was caring for
1282
01:21:21.340 --> 01:21:24.420
three children, two of them very young, and her marriage
1283
01:21:24.439 --> 01:21:28.020
was falling apart. Her workload had been overwhelming before her
1284
01:21:28.060 --> 01:21:31.720
mission and hadn't let up much since her return. Her
1285
01:21:31.760 --> 01:21:34.899
parents weren't happy that she and Rich were divorcing, and
1286
01:21:34.939 --> 01:21:37.050
she had been told by her superiors that it was
1287
01:21:37.189 --> 01:21:40.329
unlikely that she'd be given another space mission. She had
1288
01:21:40.369 --> 01:21:43.649
also become aggressive with co-workers on a few occasions. She'd
1289
01:21:43.689 --> 01:21:46.909
received three speeding tickets in a relatively short period of time,
1290
01:21:47.270 --> 01:21:50.800
was barely sleeping or eating, and had lost a significant
1291
01:21:50.840 --> 01:21:53.960
amount of weight, about 15% of her body weight. A
1292
01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:58.119
loss of just 5% or more can lead to personality changes.
1293
01:21:58.140 --> 01:21:59.460
I didn't realize that.
1294
01:21:59.659 --> 01:22:00.340
No, I didn't either.
1295
01:22:00.569 --> 01:22:04.529
Psychiatrists were saying that the 15% loss of weight really
1296
01:22:04.569 --> 01:22:08.819
could have altered her mental health. None of those things
1297
01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:11.979
could have predicted what Lisa would eventually do, but in hindsight,
1298
01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:15.579
they do raise questions about whether she was struggling more
1299
01:22:15.640 --> 01:22:19.920
than people around her realized. After the internal review at NASA,
1300
01:22:20.020 --> 01:22:25.239
a yearly psychological evaluation became mandatory. Tom Wolfe described the
1301
01:22:25.279 --> 01:22:27.880
qualities NASA looked for in his book, The Right Stuff.
1302
01:22:28.539 --> 01:22:33.500
Candidates were expected to be emotionally stable, highly motivated, confident, adaptable,
1303
01:22:33.699 --> 01:22:36.420
good under pressure, and able to work well with others.
1304
01:22:36.699 --> 01:22:41.550
In addition, they should be hardy, resilient, goal-seeking, and socially competent.
1305
01:22:41.890 --> 01:22:44.789
They needed to handle stress and frustration without it affecting
1306
01:22:44.829 --> 01:22:48.569
their behavior or performance. and be capable of making independent
1307
01:22:48.609 --> 01:22:53.010
decisions while still functioning as part of a team. Buzz Aldrin,
1308
01:22:53.069 --> 01:22:55.659
the second man to walk on the moon, spoke openly
1309
01:22:55.720 --> 01:22:59.420
about the deep depression he experienced after returning home and
1310
01:22:59.460 --> 01:23:03.920
the overwhelming question of what came next. I had flown
1311
01:23:03.960 --> 01:23:05.979
to the moon and gotten its dust on my feet,
1312
01:23:06.319 --> 01:23:09.479
but what was there for me now? What new goal
1313
01:23:09.539 --> 01:23:13.369
could I set? What could possibly top that accomplishment? I
1314
01:23:13.409 --> 01:23:17.260
was physically exhausted and emotionally drained. held a growing sense
1315
01:23:17.319 --> 01:23:20.640
of meaningless in my work as an astronaut, knowing that
1316
01:23:20.659 --> 01:23:22.920
I would never return to the moon or even fly
1317
01:23:22.960 --> 01:23:26.319
another mission anywhere. How could I have gone almost overnight
1318
01:23:26.359 --> 01:23:29.909
from being on top of the world to feeling useless, worthless.
1319
01:23:30.409 --> 01:23:30.989
Washed up?
1320
01:23:31.529 --> 01:23:34.550
Buzz Aldrin was very vocal about his struggles with depression
1321
01:23:34.609 --> 01:23:37.670
and alcohol abuse after his time with NASA.
1322
01:23:37.750 --> 01:23:40.369
It's really admirable for him to speak out like that.
1323
01:23:40.670 --> 01:23:43.029
Yeah, definitely. It just goes to show you that these
1324
01:23:43.090 --> 01:23:45.810
people that are performing at such a high level... It
1325
01:23:45.890 --> 01:23:47.630
comes at a cost.
1326
01:23:47.649 --> 01:23:50.569
Yeah, for sure. Have you ever seen the video of
1327
01:23:50.729 --> 01:23:54.170
Buzz Aldrin punching the guy who questioned whether the moon
1328
01:23:54.189 --> 01:23:58.510
landing was real? No. I mean, I could totally understand it.
1329
01:23:58.529 --> 01:24:00.720
If you're Buzz Aldrin and you went to the moon,
1330
01:24:00.729 --> 01:24:03.220
and he was, I don't know when this was, but
1331
01:24:03.260 --> 01:24:05.279
he was older, and this guy came up to him
1332
01:24:05.340 --> 01:24:08.100
and started questioning it, and Buzz Aldrin just laid into him,
1333
01:24:08.140 --> 01:24:09.819
and I didn't blame him one bit.
1334
01:24:10.199 --> 01:24:14.800
No. The real question is whether Katy Perry went into
1335
01:24:14.859 --> 01:24:15.350
space or not.
1336
01:24:16.189 --> 01:24:18.449
That is a very controversial question. We should probably not
1337
01:24:18.489 --> 01:24:18.850
go there.
1338
01:24:19.510 --> 01:24:21.409
So this has been long enough, but I do have
1339
01:24:21.449 --> 01:24:24.609
a few questions for you. The ultimate question is, do
1340
01:24:24.649 --> 01:24:28.149
you think that Lisa would have harmed Colleen? The items
1341
01:24:28.189 --> 01:24:30.460
that she had in her car and on her person,
1342
01:24:30.720 --> 01:24:33.600
some people have called a murder kit. What do you think?
1343
01:24:34.180 --> 01:24:36.159
That's how it feels to me. The items she brought
1344
01:24:36.199 --> 01:24:39.500
with her were pretty serious, right? I can't remember exactly.
1345
01:24:39.600 --> 01:24:41.739
There was a BB gun and a knife.
1346
01:24:42.119 --> 01:24:44.359
There was like a sledgehammer or something there was a
1347
01:24:44.420 --> 01:24:47.960
hammer too yeah i mean those feel like pretty lethal
1348
01:24:48.359 --> 01:24:51.079
instruments so why would you bring those.
1349
01:24:50.880 --> 01:24:55.020
If yes yes i feel a little defensive for lisa
1350
01:24:55.090 --> 01:24:57.270
and i know that's not right because i do whatever
1351
01:24:57.350 --> 01:25:00.149
she did was was wrong but maybe she had those
1352
01:25:00.270 --> 01:25:04.010
items because she was in if colleen hurt her if
1353
01:25:04.569 --> 01:25:06.810
colleen lunged at her i mean i know that probably
1354
01:25:06.869 --> 01:25:09.069
isn't the best explanation.
1355
01:25:08.930 --> 01:25:11.850
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, she didn't use any
1356
01:25:11.869 --> 01:25:14.449
of the items. They were in her car, right? And
1357
01:25:14.510 --> 01:25:15.729
she wasn't in her car.
1358
01:25:15.810 --> 01:25:18.829
She had some of the items in her bag, like
1359
01:25:18.850 --> 01:25:21.989
the pepper spray, when she confronted Colleen in her car.
1360
01:25:22.050 --> 01:25:24.979
Yeah, I guess I do wonder what her intention was
1361
01:25:25.399 --> 01:25:28.420
when she confronted Colleen in her car. What was her plan?
1362
01:25:28.619 --> 01:25:30.939
What was she going to do? She sprayed her with
1363
01:25:30.960 --> 01:25:32.479
the pepper spray, and then what? Was she going to
1364
01:25:32.500 --> 01:25:34.399
drag her out of the car? Was she going to
1365
01:25:34.439 --> 01:25:35.340
get into the car with her?
1366
01:25:35.750 --> 01:25:38.289
Yeah, I am confused by that. And I did misspeak earlier.
1367
01:25:38.350 --> 01:25:41.010
I think I said that Colleen lived in Orlando. She
1368
01:25:41.090 --> 01:25:43.880
flew into the Orlando airport, but she lived closer to
1369
01:25:43.920 --> 01:25:47.800
Cape Canaveral, which is like 45 minutes away. If Lisa
1370
01:25:47.819 --> 01:25:49.939
really intended to harm her, why didn't she go to
1371
01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:50.699
her house?
1372
01:25:51.020 --> 01:25:53.340
Yeah, that's the thing that kind of baffles me about this.
1373
01:25:53.539 --> 01:25:55.630
There was so much planning that went into this from
1374
01:25:55.670 --> 01:25:59.550
Lisa's perspective. She had a lot of detail into the
1375
01:25:59.829 --> 01:26:01.909
planning of this whole thing. But then when it came
1376
01:26:01.989 --> 01:26:06.039
to the actual confrontation... With Colleen, it just seems like, well,
1377
01:26:06.260 --> 01:26:08.760
why did she do that there? That just doesn't seem
1378
01:26:08.800 --> 01:26:10.140
like it makes a lot of sense.
1379
01:26:10.159 --> 01:26:11.840
Yeah, and Lisa was in her car. I think her
1380
01:26:11.899 --> 01:26:13.720
car might have even been in drive and she just
1381
01:26:13.739 --> 01:26:17.300
put the brake on. So, yeah, I don't really understand that. But,
1382
01:26:17.460 --> 01:26:19.550
you know, like Colleen said, if she really wanted to
1383
01:26:19.590 --> 01:26:21.510
talk to me, why didn't she approach me at the
1384
01:26:21.550 --> 01:26:24.210
luggage carousel or, you know, when we were at Starbucks?
1385
01:26:24.289 --> 01:26:28.350
And the disguise is also hard to wrap your head around. So, yeah,
1386
01:26:28.369 --> 01:26:31.119
maybe her intent's Her intent was really nefarious.
1387
01:26:31.189 --> 01:26:34.430
I mean, I'm glad that she didn't end up harming Colleen,
1388
01:26:34.470 --> 01:26:37.609
other than obviously spraying the pepper spray was pretty painful.
1389
01:26:37.670 --> 01:26:40.750
But yeah, I'm glad that it didn't get worse than that.
1390
01:26:40.770 --> 01:26:42.590
But I do wonder, like, what was her plan?
1391
01:26:42.970 --> 01:26:46.310
Do you think police overreacted, charging Lisa with attempted murder?
1392
01:26:46.329 --> 01:26:50.329
I mean, not necessarily. I don't think that charge was
1393
01:26:50.390 --> 01:26:53.479
ever going to stick, just because just having weapons in
1394
01:26:53.489 --> 01:26:56.439
your car isn't enough to... you know, know that you
1395
01:26:56.460 --> 01:26:59.090
were intending to murder someone. They may have done that
1396
01:26:59.149 --> 01:27:02.229
as a way to, you know, get her talking, to
1397
01:27:02.250 --> 01:27:04.829
be able to hold her for longer, you know, or
1398
01:27:04.909 --> 01:27:06.729
as a way to get her to plead guilty to
1399
01:27:06.770 --> 01:27:09.010
a lesser charge. So, yeah, I don't know if it
1400
01:27:09.050 --> 01:27:11.310
was an overreaction, but I don't think there was any
1401
01:27:11.369 --> 01:27:14.689
possibility that charge was ever going to come to fruition.
1402
01:27:14.970 --> 01:27:18.170
Do you think that Bill acted correctly? Do you think
1403
01:27:18.189 --> 01:27:20.270
he should have been more straightforward with Lisa?
1404
01:27:20.449 --> 01:27:22.760
Yeah, he definitely should have been more straightforward. It just
1405
01:27:24.409 --> 01:27:26.569
Those situations I know are tough. You don't want to
1406
01:27:26.609 --> 01:27:29.770
have a hard conversation, but, you know, be upfront and
1407
01:27:29.810 --> 01:27:32.869
be an adult about it and tell Lisa what the
1408
01:27:32.890 --> 01:27:35.630
story is and where things stand. He shouldn't have let
1409
01:27:35.670 --> 01:27:36.840
it go that far. Yeah.
1410
01:27:36.850 --> 01:27:39.819
Well, remember Lisa's sister said that she wasn't good at
1411
01:27:39.880 --> 01:27:44.800
interpreting social cues. And even if Phil was not answering
1412
01:27:44.840 --> 01:27:47.279
her texts and messages, a lot of women would have
1413
01:27:47.300 --> 01:27:49.420
been able to say like, oh. Okay. Yeah. I get that.
1414
01:27:49.520 --> 01:27:50.100
I get the hint.
1415
01:27:50.420 --> 01:27:53.079
Yeah. But Lisa really had a hard time getting there.
1416
01:27:53.710 --> 01:27:56.630
I think that her bond with Bill was very strong, though.
1417
01:27:56.689 --> 01:27:59.670
And she thought, I think the shared experience of being
1418
01:27:59.710 --> 01:28:02.210
an astronaut and going into space is something that so
1419
01:28:02.270 --> 01:28:05.300
few people can really understand. And how hard it is,
1420
01:28:05.350 --> 01:28:08.699
the work to get there. And I feel like Bill
1421
01:28:08.760 --> 01:28:10.619
did have a strong bond with Lisa and all the
1422
01:28:10.659 --> 01:28:12.380
other astronauts, too, for that reason.
1423
01:28:12.520 --> 01:28:16.460
Yeah, absolutely. And trying to actually maintain a friendship after
1424
01:28:16.500 --> 01:28:19.199
an affair when you're working closely together, side by side,
1425
01:28:19.220 --> 01:28:21.300
I think that's a really tough thing to do.
1426
01:28:21.319 --> 01:28:21.399
Yeah.
1427
01:28:22.119 --> 01:28:24.880
To ask Lisa just to be able to say, yeah,
1428
01:28:25.180 --> 01:28:26.960
we're done, but I'm going to still be close to
1429
01:28:26.979 --> 01:28:29.260
this person, even though I'm still in love with him.
1430
01:28:29.279 --> 01:28:30.699
That's a big ask.
1431
01:28:31.199 --> 01:28:33.390
So did I just tell you way more about NASA
1432
01:28:33.590 --> 01:28:37.340
and foam insulation that you ever thought you would need
1433
01:28:37.380 --> 01:28:37.680
to know?
1434
01:28:37.699 --> 01:28:42.260
I mean, I find it fascinating myself. I've always been,
1435
01:28:42.420 --> 01:28:46.899
you know, big into space travel and like many young people,
1436
01:28:46.939 --> 01:28:48.359
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a
1437
01:28:48.359 --> 01:28:50.729
little kid. So I find this stuff fascinating.
1438
01:28:50.909 --> 01:28:52.869
It was crazy to me how many times like the
1439
01:28:52.949 --> 01:28:55.250
insulation kept falling off. I'm like, why didn't you guys
1440
01:28:55.289 --> 01:28:58.390
try Gorilla Glue? That stuff works great. But the fact like,
1441
01:28:58.729 --> 01:29:01.470
when insulation was cracked or whatever, and they would still
1442
01:29:01.510 --> 01:29:04.729
take off, that would be so scary.
1443
01:29:04.829 --> 01:29:06.909
So scary. When I was in business school, we did
1444
01:29:06.949 --> 01:29:10.970
a whole case study on the decision-making process and the,
1445
01:29:11.430 --> 01:29:13.850
I can't remember the terminology, but kind of like the
1446
01:29:13.899 --> 01:29:17.359
groupthink that caused the problem to happen in the first place,
1447
01:29:17.399 --> 01:29:20.119
that people were kind of afraid to question things. And
1448
01:29:20.500 --> 01:29:22.560
there was sort of like a group mindset of like,
1449
01:29:22.720 --> 01:29:25.300
you know, oh no, everything's good. We're fine. We're going
1450
01:29:25.319 --> 01:29:28.649
to move forward. And It's really an interesting study in
1451
01:29:29.250 --> 01:29:33.649
leadership and teamwork and how to solve problems in a
1452
01:29:33.689 --> 01:29:35.750
way that you're not just masking them.
1453
01:29:36.270 --> 01:29:39.579
That's a really interesting perspective. I did read two books
1454
01:29:39.619 --> 01:29:42.100
for this case. I want to give them a mention.
1455
01:29:42.460 --> 01:29:45.579
One is by Diane Fanning. It's called Out There, The
1456
01:29:45.720 --> 01:29:49.119
In-Depth Story of the Astronaut Love Triangle. And a book
1457
01:29:49.180 --> 01:29:53.199
by Kimberly Moore called Starcross, The Story of Astronaut Lisa Nowak.
1458
01:29:53.680 --> 01:29:55.579
Both of them were really good with a lot of
1459
01:29:55.619 --> 01:29:58.600
detailed information. Obviously, that's why my case is so detailed,
1460
01:29:58.680 --> 01:30:02.689
but really interesting stuff. And I realized that I do
1461
01:30:02.770 --> 01:30:04.069
not have the right stuff.
1462
01:30:04.750 --> 01:30:06.550
I don't think I do either. There is a.
1463
01:30:06.569 --> 01:30:11.729
Movie that I did not watch starring Natalie Portman as Lisa.
1464
01:30:12.970 --> 01:30:15.029
It's like I didn't like I said, I didn't watch it,
1465
01:30:15.029 --> 01:30:17.189
but I guess it's kind of roughly based on this story.
1466
01:30:17.890 --> 01:30:21.829
And Jon Hamm plays Bill. And he actually does, Bill
1467
01:30:21.869 --> 01:30:24.210
kind of does look like Jon Hamm. So it's kind
1468
01:30:24.250 --> 01:30:26.130
of interesting. What's it called? Lucy and the Sky of Diamonds.
1469
01:30:26.170 --> 01:30:29.170
It only has a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh boy. So,
1470
01:30:29.670 --> 01:30:32.470
you know, I tried to find it last night for free.
1471
01:30:32.489 --> 01:30:34.760
I couldn't find it. I was like, well, I don't
1472
01:30:34.770 --> 01:30:39.220
want to pay for it. 21% movie. Yeah. One more
1473
01:30:39.260 --> 01:30:41.300
question I have for you. And this is how I
1474
01:30:41.340 --> 01:30:45.659
feel about Lisa. Should we be judged by our worst moment?
1475
01:30:46.470 --> 01:30:48.890
No, we really shouldn't. I mean, she had so many
1476
01:30:48.949 --> 01:30:52.250
accomplishments and so like it's just amazing what she was
1477
01:30:52.310 --> 01:30:54.979
able to accomplish. But the sad fact is we don't
1478
01:30:55.380 --> 01:30:57.619
we don't get to choose what we're remembered for. And
1479
01:30:57.819 --> 01:31:01.060
she will always be remembered for that more than her accomplishments,
1480
01:31:01.119 --> 01:31:01.939
I'm afraid. Yeah.
1481
01:31:02.239 --> 01:31:03.779
Well, you know how I'm a little dumb about some
1482
01:31:03.819 --> 01:31:06.039
things and you don't have to agree with me, but
1483
01:31:06.060 --> 01:31:09.109
I see you shaking your head. Houston, we have a problem.
1484
01:31:09.529 --> 01:31:13.529
I never realized that that meant Houston. They're talking to Houston,
1485
01:31:13.600 --> 01:31:16.279
and that's where the command center... Oh, you got that, huh?
1486
01:31:16.340 --> 01:31:17.340
Everyone knew that but me?
1487
01:31:17.880 --> 01:31:20.739
All right. Yeah, that's interesting.
1488
01:31:21.039 --> 01:31:24.020
Yeah, it's always like, well, what's Houston? But yeah, you're
1489
01:31:24.060 --> 01:31:26.180
talking to people and... Okay, never mind. Everyone gets it
1490
01:31:26.199 --> 01:31:29.380
but me. It's okay. Well, I hope you all enjoyed
1491
01:31:29.579 --> 01:31:38.430
going to space with us. Thank you so much for
1492
01:31:38.470 --> 01:31:40.789
listening to this episode of Love, Marry, Kill.
1493
01:31:41.189 --> 01:31:44.500
Please rate, review, follow, and subscribe. Find us on social
1494
01:31:44.539 --> 01:31:48.640
media or send us an email at lovemarykill at gmail.com.
1495
01:31:49.119 --> 01:31:54.220
Please consider supporting us on patreon.com slash lovemarykill. For $ 5
1496
01:31:54.180 --> 01:31:57.189
a month, you get early ad-free access and a monthly
1497
01:31:57.229 --> 01:31:58.130
bonus episode.
1498
01:31:58.630 --> 01:32:01.750
Join us next Monday for another episode of Love, Marry, Kill.
1499
01:32:07.520 --> 01:32:29.670
Thank you. Thank you.