Astronauts’ image falls back to Earth in love triangle case

UNITED STATES: The image of the American astronaut fearlessly journeying into space has been dealt a blow this week with the revelation that even NASA heros fall prey to human weaknesses.

The case of Lisa Nowak, who flew home after being charged with attempted murder and kidnapping after allegedly attacking a woman she believed was a rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot, has captured headlines around the world.

And the question on most people’s lips is how an astronaut supposedly with nerves of steel could be driven to stalk another woman across more than 1,500 miles (900 miles), allegedly equipped with a knife, a steel mallet and a gun, and in the process destroy her stellar career?

Former French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, who was one of Nowak’s instructors at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, said she was “serious, hardworking, competent” and “was able to handle very stressful situations.”

But her actions show that “astronauts are human beings, and that they can blow a lid and let themselves be overwhelmed by emotions that have nothing to do with their work,” Clervoy told AFP.

Homer Hickman, an expert on space programs, criticized the National Aeronautics and Space Administration saying astronauts lived life in a “pressure-cooker”.

“The problem with ... the astronauts, and there is a problem, it’s not them individually. They are very, very bright. It’s the organization that they work for,” he told CNN television.

“I thought for a long, long time, and I have proselytized within NASA, that the astronaut office in Houston is a dysfunctional organization,” said Hickman, a retired NASA engineer who wrote the book “October Sky: A Memoir.”

“Pretty soon, you know, naturally when you have healthy, young, bright people together in a pressure cooker, these romantic liaisons start to occur,” he said.

Meanwhile NASA officials said they were to launch a review of psychological screening procedures for astronauts in the wake of a bizarre love-triangle case.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was to “initiate a review of existing psychological screening for admittance into the astronaut corps,” NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale told a news conference at the space agency’s headquarters in Washington.

Dale also said that NASA would conduct “a review of the nature and extent to which we do ongoing psychological assessments during an astronaut’s career at NASA.”

Washington, Thursday, AFP