WORLD / Newsmaker
Astronaut suffered 'mental anguish'
(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-08 08:56
This photo provided by Andrea Rose, sister of astronaut Lisa Nowak, shows
Nowak, right, and her husband Rich and their twin daughters on the
occasion of the babies' baptisms in the spring of 2002 in Houston.
[AP/file]
Houston - Lisa Nowak chose a juggling act of dauntingly high difficulty:
to be an astronaut and a mother of three.
Her background -- high school valedictorian, Naval Academy graduate, test
pilot -- seemed to equip her for the challenge. Yet as she and some of
her acquaintances acknowledged, the stresses on her and her family were
extraordinarily intense.
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On Wednesday, transformed from space hero to criminal suspect, Nowak
returned to Houston for a medical assessment, a day after she was charged
in Florida with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping in what police
depicted as a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut.
The woman viewed as a role model by the schoolchildren she often
addressed was met on the tarmac by police and escorted into a waiting
squad car after her release on bail. Her head was covered by a jacket.
She faced a medical exam at Johnson Space Center.
NASA, at a loss to explain what went wrong, said it would revamp its
psychological screening process in light of Nowak's arrest. The review
will look at how astronauts are screened for psychological problems and
whether Nowak's dealings with co-workers signaled complications.
Nowak's children were with her husband, Richard, who works for a NASA
contractor. She was being replaced as a ground communicator for the next
space shuttle mission in March, a job in which she would talk to the
astronauts from Houston during their flight.
Some part of any breakdown may defy rational explanation, but those who
know Nowak and NASA could sense the stress she was under.
Dr. Jon Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon who lost his wife, astronaut
Laurel Clark, in the 2003 Columbia disaster, said Nowak provided
invaluable support to his family then, at the cost of losing time with
her own family.
"She was the epitome of managing a very hectic career, making sacrifices
to accommodate her family," Clark said in a telephone interview. "All
those stresses can conspire to be overwhelming. ... Clearly she suffered
a lot of mental anguish.
"There is a lot of marital stress in the astronaut corps in general, a
huge amount," Clark said. "It's not unheard of for things to change into
relationships that are beyond professional."
Clark also said there can be extra pressure on NASA's female astronauts
-- and the men, like himself, who marry them.
"They made more sacrifices than the 'Right Stuff' guys," he said,
comparing women astronauts to the original all-male astronaut corps.
"They have to balance two careers -- to be a mom and wife and an
astronaut. ... You don't come home at night, like most of the male
astronauts, and have everything ready for you."
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