Anatomy of an Out-of-This-World Affair

HOUSTON, March 6, 2007— -- Shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein admitted to detectives he had an affair with fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak that lasted for years, but in a lengthy statement given to investigators with the Orlando Police Department and just released this week by the prosecutors in the case, he appeared surprised that she would target his new lover for bodily harm.

What emerges from the transcript of his police interview is that the timing of Nowak's alleged attack was hardly a coincidence. After they began their affair and Oefelein left his wife, it would be three more years before Nowak would do the same. And just weeks after she ended her 19-year-long marriage, Oefelein dumped her for his new girlfriend.

Several weeks later, Nowak was arrested in Orlando, where she allegedly tried to assault Oefelein's new squeeze.

When detectives questioned him about his relationship with Nowak, Oefelein admitted he knew she was married, but said she told him her marriage was rocky.

"We talked as friends about issues, and our lives, that maybe are personal. When you have a close friend you start talking about issues in your life," he told detectives during an interview at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Investigator: "What was your marital status at the time?"

Oefelein: "At that time I was married."

Investigator: "OK, at some point you ended up getting divorced. Is that correct?"

Oefelein: "Yes."

Oefelein went on to tell investigators that he and Nowak began their affair two or three years ago. "We trained together, went through survival training on the same team, we also were on the same bicycle team, you just get paired up."

Soon, he said, they considered themselves an exclusive couple, despite the fact that they were both married at the time to others. However, when he met Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman last fall during a shuttle training session at the Kennedy Space Center, he says he realized "the relationship with Lisa was not how it had been before." His feelings for Nowak had changed. He was now in love with Shipman.