The Spaced Out Astronaut

We get all sorts of bizarre behavior from Hollywood celebrities, most of it keyed to the excesses of their lifestyle.

I remember when news broke about Kim Nowak, the space shuttle astronaut who flew into Orlando and wore diapers on her drive to the Space Coast so she wouldn't have to make any stops (3 diapers, to be precises, she must have drunk a lot on the plane). Then she accosted her rival for the affections of another astronaut with pepper spray and abduction. I remember being as stunned at this whacked out behavior as everyone else.

But we shouldn't be.

Think about it; Navy officers have to be go-get-'em folks, and they're trained in combat. Astronauts wear diapers on their missions (urine in zero g would just be nasty). So as weird as Lady Kim's actions are to us, they are excessive extensions of her lifestyle. Criminal extensions, but in character nonetheless. We can look at them as way out of the norm, but for her they aren't that far outside the norm.

I've been struck how nonchalant she's been about the crime versus wearing the ankle bracelet. We think "let the punishment fit the crime" but to her she planned and executed a mission that didn't quite work. To her it is excessive punishment.

I mean, if Malissa was running around Orlando in diapers shooting people with pepper spray and roughing them up that would be way strange and we'd visit her in the nut house, but for a Navy Officer/Astronaut, maybe that's not soooo strange, but just a little strange.

Would a jury of her peers be other astronauts and navy personnel? If not, can she get a fair trial?