Starfall

NASA managers say their people are very good at "compartmentalizing."  Two of the Space Station astronauts, Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams have a spacewalk to do today (they’re a bit more than halfway through at this writing), so they have more immediate concerns than the Lisa Nowak case.  Yes, says NASA, the ISS crew was told about Capt. Nowak’s case the day the story broke.  No, says NASA, it’s not consuming all their time. Many of us earthlings are different.  The Chicago Tribune has a sad editorial about Nowak: "The metaphor of an astronaut, atop the world, is too tempting. If she weren’t an astronaut, after all, this story probably wouldn’t be spinning around the globe and providing fodder for late-night comics and editorial cartoonists." The Orlando Sentinel weighs in too: "Love gone very wrong," is the title of its editorial. "It could be a mistake to read too much into Lisa Marie Nowak’s meltdown." It’s like slowing to look at the auto wreck in the opposite lane.  There may not be much to learn from it, but one can’t resist. 
Lisa Nowak’s sister released this photo of the family in happier times: Lisa with her husband, Rich, and their twin daughters in 2002.  Meanwhile, back in the cosmos where Lisa Nowak was supposed to be… Mike Lopez-Alegria and Suni Williams are on their third EVA in nine days, and both are setting records.  At 12:16 this afternoon, EST, Lopez-Alegria became America’s most experienced spacewalker, having been outside in a spacesuit ten times, having spent 58 hours and 32 minutes, and counting, breathing air from a backpack. By the end of February, Gina Sunseri notes, Williams will have racked up the most spacewalks for a woman (four). Her time after their last EVA–on Super Bowl Sunday, though they were finished in time for the game–was 22 hours and 37 minutes.    As I’ve noted before, you can stream the video HERE.  They’re doing a lot of electrical work, so there are dizzying pictures from their helmet cameras, but some of the wide shots are beautiful.