Who knew? Astronauts are human. A nice little soap opera has developed, according to NASA Watch, in which one female astronaut tried to kidnap (so the police allege) another female astronaut a woman Air Force captain because she was jealous of the relationship the latter had with a male astronaut. She sprayed her victim with pepper spray, and wore a wig and trenchcoat (don't parking garages have automatic trenchcoat recognition algorithms?).
Boy that's going to make mission tensions interesting. "I'm not firing the orbital deinsertion boost until you agree to stop seeing that woman!""But honey, she's on the mission!" "So throw her out the airlock!"
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Correction to your post: the attempted kidnapper was an astronaut, as was the male in the case, but the guy's girlfriend (the victim) is not an astronaut, she's an Air Force Officer.
Damn. It's so much more poetic the other way...
I suppose it goes without saying that she's trashed her career as an astronaut. I realize standards have been relaxed since the old Mercury days (when Jim Lovell was nixed for having some blood chem slightly out of whack), but I imagine they still require some reasonable level of psychological stability. Whatthehell was she thinking?
This is pretty bizarre. The woman has practically thrown her life away, and done so in such a fashion that I wonder about her mental health. The newspaper story I read this morning reports that she put on a *diaper* to save on rest stops for the 900-mile drive from Houston to Orlando. It didn't say anything about her history other than her profession and family (married, three kids), so no indication if there were any irrational episodes in her past. To make matters more confusing, she apparently described her relationship with the male astronaut (also married) as 'less than an affair' - sounding as if he might be unaware of her obsession.
I'm expecting the legal outcome to be some kind of remand to mental health care.
I have a feeling that she might have undergone severe stress/nervous breakdown triggered by her last flight into space. The news pieces make it sound like she got back recently from her last mission. Being up there, especially repeatedly, takes a really serious toll on a person physically and mentally.