{"id":267105,"date":"2026-02-04T11:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267105\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T11:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:53:12","slug":"today-in-history-february-4-astronaut-drives-1500km-to-pepper-spray-romantic-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267105\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – February 4: Astronaut drives 1500km to pepper-spray romantic rival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days after being rejected for an upcoming space flight, an American astronaut went on a cross-country trip in order to attack a romantic rival on February 4, 2007<\/a>.Lisa Nowak<\/a> was in contention to be selected as a mission specialist for an upcoming space flight, which would be her second voyage to space.<\/p>\n

But she was passed over in favour of Stephanie Wilson.<\/p>\n

\"LisaLisa Novak went to space once but was denied a spot on another mission. (NASA)<\/p>\n

Less than a week later, Nowak set out to attack the new partner of her former lover, astronaut William Oefelein.<\/p>\n

What seemed like an impulsive decision actually took a remarkable amount of preparation and commitment.<\/p>\n

Nowak knew she needed to get to Orlando International Airport at 1pm when Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman would be landing.<\/p>\n

\"LisaLisa Nowak was booted out of NASA after she attacked a love rival. (NASA)<\/p>\n

Shipman had been dating Oefelein for several months.<\/p>\n

Equipped with a BB pistol, pepper spray, a drilling hammer, a knife and dressed in a trenchcoat and black wig, Nowak set out to intercept Shipman.<\/p>\n

She then drove 1550km from Houston to Orlando.<\/p>\n

Nowak then cornered Shipman as she got in her car, then pepper-sprayed her.<\/p>\n

\"LisaLisa Nowak pepper-sprayed a romantic rival. (Orlando Police Department)Nowak was arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping<\/a>, attempted murder, battery, attempted vehicle burglary and destruction of evidence.<\/p>\n

Shipman told police that Nowak had been stalking her for two months.<\/p>\n

During the police interrogation, the astronaut told police she had worn a diaper during her long drive so she wouldn’t have to stop along the way.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Oefelein was in a brief relationship with Lisa Nowak. (NASA)<\/p>\n

She would later deny that story, but not after it became fodder for every late-night host in America.<\/p>\n

“As you know she went to court yesterday and was released on her own incontinence,” Jay Leno remarked.<\/p>\n

The charges were later reduced in a plea deal, and she was sentenced to a year’s probation.<\/p>\n

Nowak would get divorced the following year. She was booted out of NASA and then the Navy.<\/p>\n

Oefelein and Shipman married and moved to Alaska.<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Days after being rejected for an upcoming space flight, an American astronaut went on a cross-country trip in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-267105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}