Hot e-mails piqued jealousy in fired astronaut

By Pat Reber Mar 8, 2007, 6:05 GMT

Washington - In the end, it was the sex-charged e-mails in outerspace that helped put her over the top.

US astronaut Lisa Nowak, whose jealousy in a love-triangle with a space colleague drove her to physically attack her rival, was dropped from NASA's elite team Wednesday - the end of a hard-fought career that demanded rigorous physical training and multiple degrees in aeronautical engineering.

It was the steamy e-mails sent between fellow astronaut William Oefelein and the rival during a space mission in December that helped prompt her bizarre actions, according to court documents posted on the internet this week.

'First urge will be to rip your clothes off, throw you on the ground and love the hell out of you,' wrote Colleen Shipman, a military captain who Oefelein has identified as his girlfriend of several months. 'Am anxious to get you alone ... but honestly, love, I want you to totally and thoroughly enjoy your hero's homecoming.'

The case has provided rare insight into the behind-the-scenes lives of America's space heroes, usually accorded the sort of awe, respect and adulation given to top athletes and royalty.

Nowak, 43, the married mother of three, had a two or three-year romantic relationship with Oefelein, according to Oefelein's interview with police.

But after she learned of his relationship with Shipman, she drove nearly 1,450 kilometres from Houston, Texas, wearing an astronaut diaper to eliminate restroom breaks, to intercept Shipman at an Orlando airport, police charge.

In the ensuing attack, about 4 am February 5, Nowak wore a disguise, followed Shipman to her car, asked for a ride and to use her cell phone - and then sprayed Shipman with pepper spray through the car's window.

Shipman was able to drive away and get help.

Police said Nowak had carried a BB pistol, steel mallet, a 10- centimetre folding knife, rubber tubing, plastic garbage bags and 600 dollars on the race to Orlando - and also had print-outs of the love- struck e-mails between Oefelein and Shipman.

Oefelein and his new lover were besotted with each other.

'I need my beautiful Irish girl to keep the evil, ugly bread canister ladies away from me,' Oefelein wrote in January about an apparent European Space Agency business trip to Europe that Shipman was to accompany him on.

'Kisses and a great big giant hug with my legs around you,' Shipman wrote in a January 8 mail. 'I love you and I am head-over- heels IN love with you.'

Nowak apparently gained access to the e-mails using a key she still had to Oefelein's Houston apartment, where she logged on to Oefelein's e-mail, police have said. Oefelein said he never locked down his computer before leaving the house, but counted on the 'sleep function' to shut it down.

Oefelein said he allowed his jilted lover to keep her 'pink' bicycle in his apartment, despite the break-up, and was even planning to train with her for a bike race in April - a situation that made the new girlfriend nervous.

'I told him that I wasn't gonna tell him to get rid of (the bike), but I told him that it made me very uncomfortable and it made me ... want to pull away from this relationship,' Shipman told police. 'It made me think that ... he didn't quite cut ties maybe.'

Nowak had in fact continued to call Oefelein daily, despite the breakup, Oefelein told police. 'She seemed a little disappointed ... She tried to call me a lot,' he said.

Nowak, who participated in her first shuttle mission last year after ten years of training, has been charged with battery and attempted kidnapping in Orlando, Florida, for the attack. Police last week dropped attempted murder charges.

NASA said Wednesday that Nowak's 'detail' as a NASA astronaut 'has been terminated' effective Thursday, 'because the agency lacks the administrative means to deal appropriately with the criminal charges pending against Nowak,' the statement said.

As a naval officer on assignment to NASA, Nowak will remain in the US Navy which is expected to make her next assignment, NASA said.

Shipman described to police the premonition she had about Nowak as a possible personal threat to her. She said she asked her astronaut lover if he was sure that Nowak was 'okay' with the breakup.

'Because, you know how these things go. And I said is there gonna be some crazy lady showing up at my door trying to kill me, and he said, 'No, no, no, she's not like that, she's fine with it, she's happy for me',' Shipman said, according to the court documents.