There is a whole lot of web action circulating around America's strangest spacewoman, Lisa Nowak, with even the straightest-faced reporters finding Mrs. Nowak's crazy, violent behavior almost too weird to take in.But in looking for explanations, various MSM stories have put the blame on...let's see now... Mrs. Nowak's employer (NASA's screening process), Mrs. Nowak's unrequited love (William Oefelein), primal pain (that one comes from Newsweek), Mrs. Nowak's professional mileu (the "astronaut culture which stresses achievement," apparantly a bad thing to the A.P.), Mrs. Nowak's supposed love competition (Colleen Shipman), Mrs. Nowak's three children (one is a...gasp...teenager), Mrs. Nowak's estranged husband (Richard Nowak), Mrs. Nowak's caring too much for other people, Mrs. Nowak's career uncertainties (What tops space flight?), Mrs. Nowak's status as a hero (creating an "unsustainable ego drive"), and even the possibilities of unknown space-induced pressures on the brain.
Everything seems to be considered at fault except...the selfish obsession and vengeful wrath of Mrs. Nowak herself.
At any rate, I'm afraid that Lisa Nowak's eerie abduction attempt (which perhaps was planned to be something much worse still) has crowded out of the news headlines a couple of stories much more important. One of them is also negative. It seems that a never-before-seen video tape of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the moon, a video much sharper than the one we did see, has disappeared from NASA files and is believed permanently lost.
But the second news story is about one of those space achievements that should still create a "Wow Factor" in American hearts but, alas, does not because we're too jaded, too hooked on artificial thrills and computer-ge
nerated movie images, too lacking in media attention to NASA's current activity to correctly appreciate the post-Apollo heroism, genius, and vision that astronauts and their ground teams have been performing.But hey; let's try to shake off our apathy at least long enough to give a resounding cheer for Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria who, just two days after Lisa Nowak stole the headlines with her bizarre attack, broke the U.S. spacewalk record. Lopez-Alegria (shown at left) surpassed the previous U.S. record of 58 hours and 32 minutes. Good for him! Good for the space program! And good for the U.S.A!
