Slashdot Mirror
NASA Fires Astronaut
davidwr writes "In an unprecedented move for an unprecedented situation, NASA has fired now-former astronaut Lisa Nowack. She is facing charges of attempted kidnapping related to an incident earlier this year. Ms. Nowack is a Navy officer and remains so."
listening to her side of the story?
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
In an unprecedented move for an unprecedented situation, NASA has fired now-former astronaut Lisa Nowack.
It's not completely unprecedented. They fired the Challenger crew. I guess they just couldn't keep it together.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Okay, I guess technically they've never fired an astronaut before, so it is "unprecedented" in that sense.
But it's not like it's unusual to fire someone who is incapable of doing the job you hired them to do.
Sensationalism at its "finest".
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
One question about this whole thing that has bothered me is that she wore diapers to obviate the need for bathroom breaks. She drove 900 miles really fast, which meant she also had to refuel. Assuming great mileage, a large fuel tank, and a speedy car, she had to stop at least twice to gas. I'm not sure how much time would've been saved by stopping off in the loo. I think it tends to show more of how batty she is- which is good for her defense. Has anyone seen how long the trip actually took for her to drive?
It's not like this is strange. She's under investigation for a felony... I'm pretty sure that disqualifies her from flying on the space shuttle. If not that, the fact that she's a certifiable whackjob.
As for her remaining a Navy officer, I suspect she'll get a second (please forgive the pun here) dishonorable discharge after the dust settles.
No, they fired Lisa Nowak. I know this is Slashdot, and I'm not new here ... but Christ, is it that hard to do a little basic spell-checking?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Oefelein told investigators he and Nowak both served on the bicycling team at NASA... Man, I know NASA is strapped for cash, but bicycles?
So you're saying that NASA should keep someone totally unqualified for any kind of high-stress, high-risk work on the payroll?
Besides, it's more like she's a Navy pilot seconded to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for space research projects. If she's no longer suited to work on such projects, the right thing to do is to take her off those projects and return her to her regular Navy pilot duties--or such of those duties as her parent organization finds her still fit to perform. It's not like NASA tossed her out on the street.
Also, this is the first time an Astronaut has "snapped" like this. How do you know it's the training program, and not a personality quirk in the candidate? Astronauts are typically chosen from among a pool of people who have already proven their aptitude for high-stress, high-risk work. Most of the candidates eithe wash out or pass through the qualification tests. The ones that pass through almost never snap, but as manning increases, the occasional ringer is bound to slip through. The right thing to do is not to keep the ringer, but to wash them out as soon as you become aware of them.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"Has anyone tried listening to her side of the story?"
has anyone tried to listen to it without laughing... thats the hard part.
What I love about this story is she gets aaa wig, everything you need to kill and torture someone, drives forever to meet her... and the weird part is diapers that isnt weird for her or her job... like none of that other stuff bothers anyone.
Clearly, we are desensitized to murder and all that... but adult diapers really gets us.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
NASA said it requested Nowak's detail be ended "because the agency lacks the administrative means to deal appropriately with the criminal charges pending against Nowak. Because Nowak is a naval officer on assignment to NASA, rather than a NASA civil servant, she is not subject to administrative action by NASA."
In other words, NASA's only option (other than doing nothing) is to fire her.
As for the quality of people NASA takes into their program, they're mostly products of the Navy/Army Test Pilot School. Even the engineers (like this crazy robotic arm operator) went to test pilot school.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Only on slashdot would you have someone question the logic of a nutcase wearing diapers in order to avoid taking bathroom breaks.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
I find that it's the "Flamebait" mod that changes it from "wrong but funny" to "wrong but hilarous".
Yeah, I guess some people are still pretty broken up over the whole Challenger thing.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Except for the fact that speeding has nothing to do with cashiering, yet sanity has EVERYTHING to do with cramped quarters with other people for long periods of time.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
They're custom-made from Lockheed Martin, spent 8 years in development each at a cost of $650 million, use military-grade titanium frames and have wheels made up of 65,000 tiny sheets of vulcanized rubber which are handmade and then painstakingly knit together to best resist wear-and-tear with the road. They're only used for serious scientific business, like carrying a mouse in the basket to see what the physiological changes are to a mouse riding a bicycle. It was determined that the changes are rather similar to what a mouse experiences in low-gravity: not much, and if you give him cheese he really couldn't care less.
Plans to retest using a hamster and sunflower seeds were scrapped after the bike was totaled in a training accident. (A NASA bicycle rider on loan from the Air Force attempted to take the bicycle over a 3 inch curb, which should have been within the 5 inch tolerance level of the suspension. Unfortunately, one of NASA's subcontractors designed for 5 cm tolerance level instead, and after the suspension exceeded tolerance it folded like only a $600 million can can.)
NASA is now submitting a proposal for a better, more expensive bicycle to continue their important scientific mission. $1 billion is slated for testing the suspension under a variety of stressful conditions, and as much as $2.50 is slated for experimental apparati for measuring the responses of the hamster.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Better question: Would you let somebody with obvious mental instability babysit your $1.3 billion kid?
That only applies to criminal trials (at least in theory; the principle does seem to be weakening these days). Cause for firing someone or for prevailing in a civil suit doesn't require that high a standard. What she did do, even if she hasn't formally been found guilty of the charges against her, constituted conduct unbecoming someone in her position. Dismissing her from the Navy might require a conviction or a court-martial, but they certainly have cause to kick her out of the astronaut corps.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
She had to go. Were it the NBA, they could have just fined her, or sent her to rehab, but.....
Getting fired from the Federal Government is generally tough-especially if you are prior military. Unlike private industry, it requires TONS of paperwork, and/or an extraordinary event. You have to really fuck up to get canned. Typically, the way to deal with a problem employee is to promote them into another department or position-that is usually how it is done. This is one reason why the Federal Government has some seriously mismatched people in certain positions. Also, the closer you are to retirement, the less likely they will actually fire you. You can be marginalized, but you won't get fired very easily. Some branches of the military are cracking down on some bad behavior. For example, the US Coast Guard will fire you if you get yourself a DUI as a civilian, and if you are active duty you COULD get two DUI's (pending a board review) before being fired, but that's it. On the flip side, you could be a lazy bum and be a low productivity worker for decades, and probably make it to retirement while being paid moderately well.
The line of separation for GS positions typically stops at the GS-12 level-there are still some incompetent workers at the 13, 14 and 15 levels, but the numbers are far fewer, because at those levels incompetency and general specialist/management efficiency becomes blurred.
Note, there is a little hope on the horizon-the Federal Government IS though moving some jobs away from the GS classification into a new pay banding system that rewards you based on performance, but unions are suing to slow down the change over with mixed results. That's why some job postings say GS and others have the new classification. Under the new pay banding, the probability of getting fired doesn't change much, but it is harder to move up if you are a bad worker.
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
NASA has fired astronauts before, people. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia... all "fired" for various reasons. /...17 in the ashtray
She is an Officer of the United States Navy. (And, yes, to people associated with the military, that means a hell of a lot.) When you're an officer, you get held to higher standards, because you hold in your hands the honor of the US military. It's well known and accepted that that includes your behavior off the clock.
When you're assigned to prestigious duty in the name of the Unites States of America, you better damn well be spotless, because you're holding the honor of the country in your hands.
And that's not even thinking about whether behaving poorly under emotional stress should disqualify you from things like spending six months in only a couple tens of meters of cubic space with other people. That kind of contact would drive normal people insane; Astronauts have to be more stable than a concrete slab.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
One of the officers I work with has coined a new phrase: "I've got astronaut love for you, man!" I can't being to express how wrong that is. Just wrong.
...welcome the new 'diaper' tag, and look forward to seeing it used more often on /.
Imagine one of your friends or family member did something like she did. You can't really imagine it, right? That's what her friends and family now face, because she has done something so incredibly unbelievable.
It's a great sadness and tragedy to her family and friends, NASA, the world space program, and most of all, Lisa Nowak herself.
Let's hope she and NASA will learn from this lesson and wish that she will still have some hope for her future.
This can't be done, legally, because Capt. Nowak is a military officer. (As it says in the article, the reason NASA requested her transfer back the regular Navy is because they do not have the authority to use administrative measures against military members assigned to them.
This is actually pretty common in all things military. It doesn't take conviction of anything to remove an officer or enlisted person from a special position, like a commanding officer, executive officer, command representative, or even just a normal pilot. Even just being charged with something questionable usually results in the person being relieved of that position/command until the whole issue is sorted out. If they're found innocent, they might get another chance at it sometime later...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I've actually handled wreckage of the Challenger.
Have you?
I thought not.
Trust me, it changes your perspective.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
"I'd imagine that it takes very little in the way of strange behavior to disqualify a person for astronaut duty"
Like wanting to be blasted into space in an outdated craft stuck on top of a giant fuel tank?
Its the guy (the capitain) who couldn't keep his dcik in his pants. He's the one who ought to be fired for playing with women's emotions. Actually, that'll leave very few male astronauts in NASA.
Well, that is so you can drive non stop. Duh.
Please tell us the car that she drove that actually got 900 miles to a tank of gasoline. We want to know about it!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.