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kareilaLisa Nowak is the astronaut who made news in 2007 for driving nonstop from Houston to Orlando to confront her rival for a fellow astronaut's affections, using diapers to avoid making any rest stops along the way.
I was frustrated by this book's cataloging of Nowak's history of odd and antisocial behaviors, without contextualizing them with her eventual diagnosis of OCD and Asperger's, until Chapter 28 (of 32) by the way of justifying a possible insanity defense.
I was also flabbergasted that someone with these mental health issues could have ever become an astronaut in the first place, until it was revealed how little psychological testing NASA did for its shuttle astronauts at the time: a few hours when evaluating them as candidates, and that was all. At least that much has been rectified as a result of Novak's actions - astronauts now have annual psych evaluations as well as an explicit code of conduct.
Nowak pled guilty to a third degree felony, served one year of probation, was dismissed from NASA, and was allowed to retire "less than honorably" from the Navy with full benefits. The man she loved and the woman she attacked are now married to each other and run some sort of travelogue business in Alaska.
I was frustrated by this book's cataloging of Nowak's history of odd and antisocial behaviors, without contextualizing them with her eventual diagnosis of OCD and Asperger's, until Chapter 28 (of 32) by the way of justifying a possible insanity defense.
I was also flabbergasted that someone with these mental health issues could have ever become an astronaut in the first place, until it was revealed how little psychological testing NASA did for its shuttle astronauts at the time: a few hours when evaluating them as candidates, and that was all. At least that much has been rectified as a result of Novak's actions - astronauts now have annual psych evaluations as well as an explicit code of conduct.
Nowak pled guilty to a third degree felony, served one year of probation, was dismissed from NASA, and was allowed to retire "less than honorably" from the Navy with full benefits. The man she loved and the woman she attacked are now married to each other and run some sort of travelogue business in Alaska.
