From here
It seems that NASA doesn’t see a problem if you’ll only be in space for 2 weeks.
Some Math Person figure out her average speed, presuming we know when she left Central Florida and raced like a loon 900 miles.
she made fantastic time and really, her timing was pretty damn good, all things considered.
But, what was her average speed?
I’m seeing a Smokey and the Bandit :the NASA Bugaloo
According to Google Maps, a trip from Houston (specific location not specified) to the Orlando International Airport takes 14 hours and 48 minutes - of course, Google Maps probably assumes you’re only doing the speed limit. Possible to drive by yourself in one long shot, but still tough IMO.
However, according to The Smoking Gun:
I figure, if she needed to stay at a hotel, she is definitely messed up (pun intended) for voluntarily soiling herself in diapers while driving. A bathroom break at a gas station would take less time than just checking into a hotel.
One hopes most folks have a permanent reminder tacked to their internal refrigerators along the lines of ‘If you’re a married astronaut, don’t date another married astronaut who’s dating someone else besides you’.
And here we have the plot line for a movie. Wonder how long it will take for the writers to start scribbling?
I’m guessing questions something like ‘how would you react if your married lover cheated on you’ will be part of the screening henceforth.
Where’s that ‘stuff so wierd you couldn’t make it up’ thread again?
Bill Oefelein isn’t married. Colleen is single too.
Didn’t she stash her car at a nearby hotel? She must have needed extra time to get from the hotel to the airport, figure out what plane she was on, stake out the airport buses so she could get on the same one.
All very scary.
snip
Clearly, the woman is afraid to fly.
Maybe she drove because she couldn’t have taken all of her “Tools” with her through the airport.
That’s exactly why she drove.
IIRC Jerry Lewis did it a long time ago with astronauts on the moon: The female Russian cosmonaut made his male counterpart jealous by pretending to like the American Astronaut.
Way…Way Out!
If you’re disillusioned by this, I urge you not to read the Great Debates threads. 
That last post was just a joke folks. Well, a semi-joke.
[Oliver Stone hat on]
On the other hand…a veteran astronaut who apparently went nuts, committed a felony, then killed herself before going to trial? That’s a tragedy. A veteran astronaut who apparently went nuts, committed a bizarre felony, then gets found competent enough to stand trial and go to prison for twenty years? That’s a national humiliation…and for a space program that’s having to curtail or ground it’s central space transportation system because the country is too sensitive to accept that manned space flight is risky? Well…what’s one body on the pile, if humanity’s future in the universe may be at stake?
[/Oliver Stone hat]
Thank you, thank you…I’ll be here all week.
Navy Cmdr. Bill Oefelein ain’t 'zactly in the clear here. He’s military, and possibly screwing around with a married woman. In theory, he could be charged with adultery:
*There are three “Elements of Proof” for the offense of Adultery in the Military:
(1) That the accused wrongfully had sexual intercourse with a certain person;
(2) That, at the time, the accused or the other person was married to someone else; and
(3) That, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.*
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/adultery.htm
I’d guess he’ll be flying a desk for the rest of his career at the very least.
Yes, that point #3 is the zinger. Any reasonable man in his position should have considered that the psycho hosebeast he was tapping would take it into her head to commit a highly bizarre and publicly scandalous attempted murder.
Well, except that Nowack’s reported declaration is that the relationship was “more than professional, but less than romantic” or something to that effect… which yes, leaves you scratching your head as to then how come can she be so… motivated… to do something radical about it. May have been the case that Oefelein may have indeed been turning down Nowak’s approaches and going after someone “safer” instead, and THAT was what sent phb over the edge.
And I dunno, but I would suppose that a career officer who is a “reasonable man” would expect a fellow career officer to be a reasonable woman herself, and not go phb?
He’s on the ground anyway for “good order and morale” reasons even if not his fault, since you don’t want someone who’ll be the butt of “lock down the women” jokes every time he tries to dock to the ISS…
Do we even know for a fact that a relationship existed between the Nowak and the other astronaut dude? I can easily imagine that the whole thing is a figment of her imagination. Let us not forget that she is deranged, afterall.
The amazing thing to me is how much less of a story this would be if she had just left the diapers in her footlocker and then flown to Orlando.
The one thing that I’ve learned from all this:
If at any point in the future I find it necessary to commit a violent felony of the sort that might get me splashed all over the cable news networks, it will in no way involve adult diapers.
Headline today in New York
“DARK SIDE OF THE LOON”
I’m willing to bet that fighter pilots wear adult diapers on their missions. They fly for long periods and refuel in the air. Astronauts probably have been wearing them for a while too.