NASA love triangle: Astronaut fired

Houston (Texas): US Navy Captain Lisa Nowak's detail as a NASA astronaut will be terminated, effective from Thursday, NASA and the US Navy said on Wednesday in a written statement issued jointly.

NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said that while it wasn't unusual for astronauts to leave the astronaut corps and return to the military, it was the first time the space agency had requested that the military terminate an assignment.

Hartsfield said that chief astronaut Steve Reynolds informed Nowak about the request for termination on February 24 but that processing the request took until this week.

Forty-three-year-old Nowak is charged with attempted kidnapping for allegedly confronting her former boyfriend's new love-interest in a parking lot at Florida's Orlando International Airport on February 5.

In addition to attempted kidnapping, Nowak was charged with battery and burglary of a vehicle with a weapon.

She is scheduled to be arraigned on March 22, but has already entered a not guilty plea.

Nowak's attorney said the charges overstate her conduct. The public relations company hired by her attorney, Don Lykkebak, had no comment on Wednesday.

Navy Cmdr Bill Oefelein told investigators he and Nowak had been involved in a sexual relationship that he ended in January 2007, two months after meeting Air Force Capt Colleen Shipman.

He said Nowak "appeared to take the news well."

Prosecutors contend Nowak, a mother of three who is seeking a divorce from her husband, drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando wearing adult diapers to reduce the number of stops she needed to make in order to accost Shipman.

At the Orlando airport, Nowak allegedly disguised herself in a trench coat and wig and sprayed pepper spray into Shipman's car when she refused to open the door.

Police found a BB gun, a steel mallet, a four-inch knife and rubber tubing in a bag Nowak was carrying and in her car, authorities have said.

"We are not surprised nor concerned with Lisa Nowak being fired as an astronaut or whether or not she wore a diaper," said Shipman's lawyer, Kepler Funk, in a written statement.

"We continue to focus our concern on Colleen Shipman as a crime victim,” he added.