Lisa Nowak

I find myself very disturbed by the whole Lisa Nowak saga (the astronaut arrested for attempted murder in a "love triangle" [ridiculous phrase, that]).  Trekkie and NASA junkie that I am (members of my family have worked for NASA for years), I identify with astronauts even though I have nothing in common with them:  I'm not brave or adventurous, not athletic, not scientific, I don't like change; in short, I just don't have the right stuff.  But I identify all the same, because I do understand what it means to commit yourself to something difficult and demanding.  And I admire their dedication and their willingness to make sacrifices for a larger good.  I see people like Nowak as potential Janeways, I guess, women who can be all the things I'm not (like unafraid and mathematical and decisive.)  I'm idealizing them, I know, but still.  I've never lost that awe I used to feel when watching rocket lift-offs in elementary school in the 1960s.  And I remember how excited I was to read about the first female astronauts/cosmonauts.  It was definitely "boldly going where no man has gone before."

So I feel terrible for Lisa Nowak.  No, I don't think that stalking and threatening people is a good idea or should go unaddressed; yes, she crossed the line (as Chakotay once famously told Janeway and as some NASA spokesman said today) and has to be called to account -- but it seems so clear that Nowak is mentally unstable, not criminal; it's such a sad waste of a woman and mother and career, such a loss for both her and her family.  I hate to see this painful story turned into fodder for late-night-comic jokes about diapers.  Also, I can't help but think that the attempted murder charges are absurd; you don't murder people with BB guns and pepper spray.  It upsets me that this disturbed woman is facing life in prison when no one has been harmed, while celebrities and politicians get probation and community service even after drunk driving accidents in which people get killed.  (Yeah, I know, I'm sounding like a reactionary Republican.)  And it's true that I don't know the whole story: perhaps Nowak's behavior in Orlando was so deranged and homicidal that she is a genuine threat to public safety; maybe she was planning to hurt or kill Colleen Shipman.  It doesn't sound like it, but who knows?  I certainly don't, so I shouldn't judge.  (But that rarely stops me.)

The whole thing makes no sense, but of course, that's the nature of mental illness.  Mad people do things that are, well, mad.  It's all very sad.