Orlando, Fla. – Fellow astronauts described Lisa Nowak as smart, hardworking and a good mother, but also as selfish and unwilling to perform tasks for which she hadn’t trained, according to documents released Tuesday.
That glimpse into Nowak’s life was found in hundreds of pages of documents that include summaries of interviews with four astronauts following her arrest in February on charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault and battery.
Police said she drove from Houston to Orlando to confront Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman. Authorities have said Nowak had an affair with Shipman’s boyfriend, astronaut Bill Oefelein.
Nowak, 43, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. NASA released her from the astronaut corps a month after her arrest, and she works at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas.
The four astronauts – who flew with Nowak and Oefelein on two separate missions to the space station last year – were interviewed by investigators with NASA’s Office of Inspector General and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services.
NASA rules don’t prohibit relationships between astronauts, but Nowak and Oefelein kept the affair secret. Nowak was married and had three children. Oefelein, who has two children, divorced his wife in 2005.
Astronaut Mike Fossum, who flew with Nowak on space shuttle Discovery last summer, told investigators that over the years he grew to suspect that Nowak and Oefelein were having an affair.
Fossum once saw Oefelein and Nowak fly to Key West together on a training jet after Nowak apparently had lied to a crew member about where she was going.
The relationship didn’t affect their work, Fossum said, so he never talked to anyone.
Astronaut Mark Kelly, who was the pilot on Nowak’s flight to the space station, described her as smart and well-prepared, but he told investigators that he didn’t like her.
“She was not a good team player, and he learned in space that she exhibited bad expedition behavior because she was selfish,” the investigative summary said.
