News: That astronaut thing

There's a lesson to be learned, here, and it's probably not what NASA thinks it is. How can a 43 year-old mother, who just flew a shuttle mission less than a year ago, allegedly flip out like this? Does NASA need to revise its screening procedures? Do they need regular psych evals on all their personnel, now?

A family statement said Nowak had recently separated from her husband of 19 years, who works at NASA Mission Control. They have a teenage son and young twin daughters.

The AP reported that there had been signs of problems before Nowak's arrest. In November, police were called to Nowak's home near the Johnson Space Center after a neighbor reported hearing the sounds of dishes being thrown inside, AP reported.

My take on it is that the human mind, and worse, the human heart, is a frail thing. That whole "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" saying didn't just spring out of thin air - some people will take a breakup worse than others, but for most anyone, a breakup of a longstanding marriage is a traumatic event. We'll see what the details are as they emerge...hopefully we can get some more space exploration funding out of this whole kind-of-a-tragedy-but-really-not-since-no-one-died deal.