what happened to richard t nowak

U.S.

Friend: Astronaut "Finally Snapped"

Feb eight, 2007 / vii:40 AM / CBS/AP

Anyone who'southward read Tom Wolfe'southward "The Right Stuff" or seen the picture show based on it knows about the mental and emotional stresses astronauts face as they train for space travel.

But those trying to explain the credible breakdown of Lisa Nowak say the pressure level can exist even higher for female astronauts, who not only face the same work stresses as their male counterparts but ofttimes confront loftier expectations at home.

"They made more sacrifices than the 'Correct Stuff' guys," said Dr. Jon Clark, a erstwhile NASA flying surgeon who lost his married woman, astronaut Laurel Clark, in the 2003 Columbia disaster. "They have to balance 2 careers — to exist a mom and married woman and an astronaut. ... You don't come up dwelling house at night, like nigh of the male astronauts, and take everything set up for you."

The stresses formed after Nowak's separation from her husband and the rigors of her job and the lull that ensued afterwards returning from space "all has created the excessive amount of stress and she finally snapped," Clark told CBS News' The Early Show .

Clark said Nowak, charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping in what police depict as a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut, provided invaluable support to his family unit after his wife'south death, even when it cost her time with her own husband and iii children.

Nowak'south background — high school valedictorian, Naval Academy graduate, examination airplane 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.

Adding to the scrutiny is the intense media coverage. The story of the alleged NASA love triangle has become nationwide gossip and is a gem for late night comics. Hosts tin't finish talking virtually the peculiar details of the example, like diapers, pepper spray and astronauts.

On Wednesday, transformed from space hero to criminal suspect, Nowak returned to Houston for a medical assessment.

She was met on the tarmac by police and escorted into a waiting squad motorcar after her release on bail. Her head was covered by a jacket. She faced a medical test at Johnson Space Eye.

The space agency will review the choice procedure for astronauts and the amount of screening they get after they are called, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. Currently, there is no annual psychological review.

The review will look at how astronauts are screened for psychological problems and whether Nowak's dealings with co-workers signaled complications.

Nowak has a teenage son and 5-year-old twin girls with her husband, Richard, who works for a NASA contractor. The couple separated a few weeks ago subsequently 19 years of matrimony.

"She was the epitome of managing a very hectic career, making sacrifices to conform her family," Clark said in a telephone interview. "All those stresses can conspire to exist overwhelming. ... Conspicuously she suffered a lot of mental ache.

"There is a lot of marital stress in the astronaut corps in general — a huge amount," Clark said. "Information technology'due south not unheard of for things to change into relationships that are beyond professional."

Clark expressed empathy with Richard Nowak.

"He was a existent low-central, go-with-the-menstruation, unobtrusive person," Clark said. "Yous almost accept to exist to survive in the realm. ... It was hard on our marriage to have my wife gone all the time, and eventually have her career surpass mine."

Lisa Nowak grew up in Rockville, Doc., where she was co-valedictorian and a member of the rails team in loftier school. She graduated from the Naval University in 1985. The class officers of her year said Wednesday in a statement released past Bryan Caisse, the grade secretary, that Nowak was "a bang-up classmate and friend."

"She never hesitated to lend a hand or assist someone in need. She has been an incredible function model every bit a Naval Officeholder, astronaut and mother, and has shared her success with many others," the statement said.

Nowak received a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, flew as a test pilot in the mid-1990s while caring for an baby son, and became a full-fledged astronaut in 1998.

"It'southward definitely a claiming to do the flying and accept intendance of even one child and do all the other things you accept to do. But I learned that you lot can do information technology," she said in a recent interview with Ladies Home Journal.

Last July, in the climax of her career, she flew on the space shuttle Discovery, helping operate its robotic arm and winning praise for her functioning.

However, there were signs of turmoil in her life.

In November, a neighbor reported hearing the sounds of dishes existence thrown inside Nowak's Houston dwelling. And she had begun to grade a human relationship with William Oefelein, a fellow astronaut and begetter of 2 whose own spousal relationship concluded in divorce in 2005.

Constabulary said Nowak told them the human relationship was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship."

Charlene Davis, the mother of Oefelein'south ex-wife, Michaella, said Wednesday that Nowak — although friends with Oefelein for years — had zilch to do with his marriage breakup.

"I think in that location were a lot of bad choices existence made, and Lisa just made a horrible one," Davis said in a phone interview. "And I just feel sorry for her. What the hell was she thinking?"

The terminal unraveling came this week when police force arrested Nowak for allegedly trying to kidnap Colleen Shipman, an Air Force captain from Florida. Police said Nowak believed Shipman was her rival for Oefelein's affections.

Police charged Nowak with attempting to murder Shipman based on weapons and other items found with Nowak or in her automobile: pepper spray, a BB-gun, a new steel mallet, knife and rubber tubing. Nowak'south lawyer, Donald Lykkebak, has said she only wanted to talk to Shipman.

However, former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey told CBS News' The Early Bear witness that it is doubtful the attempted murder charges would stick since Nowak attacked Shipman with pepper spray. Information technology "may be disabling or scary merely, not the kind of stuff murderers do," Coffey said.

Those who know Nowak abroad from the high-pressure atmosphere of NASA were stunned.

"I was very surprised... She ever seemed very normal to me," said Candis Silva, who lives iii houses downwards from the Nowaks. "She was a expert office model for our daughters."

Thomas Nagy, a Palo Alto, Calif., psychologist who has studied the stresses facing dual-career couples, hesitated to offer any specific diagnosis of Nowak, merely said such seemingly desperate acts could result from a chronic personality disorder or from a period of loftier stress that clouds i'due south judgment.

"When people are in that role of trying to exercise everything to the Nth degree, they don't get enough slumber, they don't do enough activities that are fun, they don't get plenty do," he said.

"If we ignore those considering we're trying to do it all, nosotros pay a price — more than feet, more depression."