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Houston, We Have a Problem
February 8, 2007

Oh NASA, please tell me it ain't so! Tell me the Lisa Marie Nowak incident is nothing more than a poorly conceived publicity stunt for a new movie, “The 200-mile High Club.”

I always believed our revered astronauts were probing new space frontiers, not each other. I always believed “I Dream of Jeannie” was a television SITCOM, not a NASA documentary. I always believed anybody could be president (Reagan and Bush both proved that), but not anybody could be an astronaut. I always believed . . . never mind.

More shattered illusions. Instead of being the heroes I always thought them to be, astronauts are now outed as being much the same as guests on the Jerry Springer television show.

NASA characterizes this incident as a “tragic event.” What’s wrong NASA? Are you shocked to discover your staff psychologists are out to lunch? Are you shocked to discover separated and divorced members of the opposite sex tend to copulate with each other at the drop of a diaper? Are you shocked to discover that astronauts are highly trained but otherwise the same as the rest of us? That may shock NASA but it doesn’t shock me.

What shocks me is a highly trained and motivated individual like Nowak attempting to allegedly maim, kidnap, or murder her rival in romance with amateur tools like pepper spray, a pocket knife and rubber hose. That effort isn’t worth a tenth of the media coverage it received. Nowak’s disguise was a nice touch but the execution of her plan was obviously flawed.

The movie version (inevitably to follow) promises to be much more exciting and a little more believable. Most people would find it difficult to absorb the idea of a 41 year old male astronaut (William Oefelein) with two children becoming intimately involved with an older woman of 43 who has three children. The average man experiencing the mythical mid-life crisis prefers much younger women.

So in the movie version, Billy-O is divorced, 45, and his ex-wife has full custody of the kids. Nowak is much younger, say . . . 32, with no children and three or four prior failed relationships. Colleen Marie Shipman, Nowak’s target is 23 and just out of college.

Billy-O catches Lisa on the rebound from a string of failed relationships. Psychologists will support this scenario since Billy-O and Lisa spend so much time together on the job. Prolonged close proximity tends to foster familiarity, friendship and intimacy.

Billy-O welcomes the relationship as a means of proving he still has his Mojo at age 45. The underlying psychological motivation here is Billy-O’s emotional need to believe his wife divorced him for something other than lame “performance,” commonly referred to as “irreconcilable differences.”

Lisa becomes obsessed with the relationship, begins to behave strangely and Billy-O decides to capitalize on his “astronaut” image to lure a younger woman into his lair. Colleen jumps at the opportunity to have her spaces explored by a famous astronaut. Lisa suspects a betrayal and snoops through Billy-O’s email one afternoon while he is in the shower. She discovers he is involved with the younger woman, Colleen.

Overcome with jealousy and disappointment, Lisa spends the second half of the movie planning revenge and subsequently misappropriating a NASA training jet. Following a good cry and a heart-rending suicide note, Lisa takes off in the jet and flies it into Colleen’s house while Billy-O is there exercising his Mojo. All three lovers die instantly in a brilliant explosion of ignited jet fuel, unrequieted need and orgasmic passion.

NASA issues a statement of shock at this tragic event; homeland security initiates three separate investigations to determine whether or not terrorists perpetrated the act; and the final scene is a fade-away shot of the suicide note lying on Lisa’s bed. There can be three alternate endings with the suicide note text being different in each of the endings.

Yup, I like the movie version much better. Get the screenwriters started.

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