On February 5, 2007, NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak confronted Colleen Shipman, a US Air Force Captain and her rival in a bizarre love triangle involving William Oefelein, her former fling who was now Shipman’s boyfriend. A day earlier, Nowak packed black gloves, a wig, a BB pistol, pepper spray, a trench coat, hammer, garbage bags, a knife, and … possibly … diapers. She then drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando, where she waited for Colleen Shipman to arrive at the Orlando International Airport. She tried to attack Shipman in her car, but she escaped by driving off. Nowak was arrested.
With that, Lisa Nowak, Colleen Shipman, and to a lesser degree, Bill Oefelein, became household names.
At the beginning, Odd Culture correspondent J. Napsterista tracked down a little seen photograph of Colleen Shipman, seen below.
Colleen Shipman was a 2002 graduate of Penn State University who has worked at Cape Canaveral since 2005. The above photograph, dated February 2002, was obtained from Penn State University and appeared in a publication titled “Effectively Sorting Components Using Machine Vision.” Ms. Shipman was a member of the student team which submitted the publication.
Ms. Shipman’s college webpage (noting her service in the Air Force) is still up. A sample:
My Major: Chemical Engineering — BioProcess Engineering Focus
What a pain in the butt this major is! Tell you what…if I knew when I was a freshman what I know now, I’d have taken up Electrical Engineering. Who’d have guessed that when I graduate in May of this year, I will have learned enough chemistry to be dangerous. They should have called this major “Fluid-flow and Heat Transfer Engineering.” Honestly.
Well, thank heaven that I came through Penn State when Biotechnology is taking off, and a new option in the Chemical Engineering department opened up. Yep, I jetted into the new BioProcess Engineering Option faster than you could say “tray spacing.” The opportunities in the Biotechnology field abound and (thank all things holy) have little to do with distillation towers and smelly old refineries. I had the pleasure of working in the BioTechnology Pilot Plant at Penn State for an entire semester, growing E. coli and purifying protiens. Many companies are doing the same today…searching for the most efficient process for producing and purifying proteins that can do things from making beer glow, to signaling the brain to stop storing fat.
So, what does a BioProcess Engineer do? Just look at all the options!
- Be commissioned a 2nd Lt in the the Air Force & work as a Project Engineer (That’s what I’m doing!!)
- Work for any pharmaceutical company, like Merck (R&D, sales, production)
- Work in the food industry for Kraft , Hershey , etc. BASF — you know, make things better!!
- Of course, you could always go to Grad School
My 2nd Major: German
It’s called a “dual-degree” program. That’s fancy for “it’ll take you 7 years to graduate, fool.” The program’s available to any student in engineering wishing to add a language (and 3 years) to their studies. Still, joining this program was the best idea I ever had. Not only did I get to do a study abroad in sunny Kiel, Germany, but now I’ve got this language skill that I never dreamed I’d master. I’ll get extra “language-pay” in the Air Force and can market myself as bilingual to the 3 biggest chemical engineering companies in the world. (They are based in Germany!)
Lisa Nowak Arrest Photo
In December 2007, NASA released emails that were sent between Nowak and Oefelein, and also Shipman and Oefelein, in response to a public records request. The messages covered a period from mid-2004 and January 2007, a month before Nowak’s arrest on charges she tried to abduct Shipman. (source: UK Telegraph)
Colleen Shipman
A message from early 2007 to Shipman from Oefelein reads “Hey cutie” and signs off “Love you.” In writing about an upcoming trip, he says: “They want your size for the arctic gear…I think I can figure that out – sized sexy and athletic.” He adds a note about plans to get a hotel saying that “Due to noise requirements” he didn’t want to stay with his parents during a trip, as he usually does, because “we need some ‘privacy’!!!!”
Colleen Shipman letters
Colleen Shipman and William Oefelein
Colleen Shipman in court
Lisa Nowak in Court
Texas Monthly weighed in on the Lisa Nowak / Colleen Shipman / Bizarre Love Triangle with probably the best magazine cover ever addressing the subject. The title on the front cover of the May 2007 issue says “Astronaut Sex” and features two people dressed in spacesuits on a bed. Not exactly subtle.
Huffington Post reported that the Texas Monthly May 2007 issue was the worst seller in the magazine’s history. Who knew?
Sentencing
In November, 2009, Lisa Nowak pleaded guilty to burglary and a misdemeanor battery charge, and then she apologized to Colleen Shipman for the attack. She was sentenced to one-year of probation. She was ordered not to have contact of any kind with Colleen Shipman or Bill Oefelein. She served 50 hours of community service and took an 8-hour anger management class.
Shipman said:
“I believe 100 percent that Lisa Nowak came here to murder me. Lisa Nowak hunted me down and attacked me in a dark parking lot. I knew in my heart that when Lisa Nowak attacked me, that she was going to kill me. It was in her eyes, a blood-chilling expression of limitless rage and glee.”
Where Are They Now?
Lisa Nowak was fired from NASA in March 2007, shortly after the incident. She retired from the Navy last year, but her discharge was deemed “other than honorable” which may affect her veterans’ benefits.
In 2010, Oefelein and Shipman were married. The couple lives in Alaska, where Oefelein is from. They also run a web site called adventurewrite.com. According to the web site bio for Colleen Shipman, she
“seems to fall down a lot, but is otherwise pretty good in a crisis. She’s got an uncanny knack for attracting the nearest predicament, and not so gracefully escaping it. ?Fortunately for us, it makes for some pretty humorous reading. She’s deathly afraid of zombies and is, of course, a die-hard Steelers fan.”
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Colleen, dump this chump. He cheated on his wife for years with Lisa. He cheated on Lisa with you. And no doubt he will eventually cheat on you with some other unsuspecting woman. You are better off with the local mailman or a store manager that is faithful and not a player like this astronaut is. I have seen men like this and believe me, they are easy to love, easy on the eyes and know exactly what to say to make a woman feel special. That is, until the day some other woman catches his eye and you will feel exactly as down as Lisa Nowak.
I do not agree with what Lisa did to you, girl….but she needs help. Like Bill she does not really know what she wants and ditched her man to be with this clown as Bill ditched his wife to be with Lisa. My sis lives in Clear Lake and tells me that a good number of the astronauts single or not fool around shamelessly and prey on basically good women like you.
Take my advice…you can do better. Dump the chump.
Cris Eagle
We are nobody to judge anybody. We are all exposed to anything at anytime. We are powerless human beings controlled by external forces. I believe that this is the usual “triangle” relationship, and when there is more than two in a couple its trouble. It is best to pray for all of them specially the children and hope that God places the pieces where they belong so this terrible situation settles without anymore pain and hurt to all involved.
To conclude that one person’s action is a set-back for all women all over is just plain stupid and ignorant. It’s like saying equality for both sexes yet when it comes to do the dirty jobs, then suddenly, forget that. Obviously she is disturbed and needed help. Obviously there’s three sides to a story. The only one that’s getting exploited is hers. So, let’s hide those knives of judgement and let it unfold.
Guilty, but insane.
Just heard – please someone tell me that I am WRONG that this woman (and I agree if she had been a man or an “unknown” woman, she would be in jail – (no bond) until trial) is now working in another area for NASA.
Now, why isn’t she in treatment somewhere?
Surely, the folks at NASA are smarter than this!?!
I do agree that treatment is the best course, but she needs to serve time for this crime as well. Hopefully, one day she can be returned to society, but NOT NOW!
I am afraid for her children, her co-workers, and for her.
Also, if she is going to claim “temporary insanity,” and then goes back to work INSTEAD of immediate treatment, then how much credibility is this “defense?”
Thoughts, please…???
Nowak cheated on her husband(with Oefelein) for several years. Trysts
and deception took hours away from her children & husband. She cared nothing for Oefelins’ wife & childrens anguish. She is a liar and an adultress with no conscience. Oefelein is a player. His charm must be his status as an astronaut, certainly can not be his looks. He is goofy looking. Status: Also a cheat and a liar. Sorry for them? No way! Turn your sympathy to the mates and children of these two!
The US legal system is screwed. Don’t put people away without proof, and then brag about it.
A bunch of righteous indignation over some woman you all don’t know? Thanks for reminding me why I hate the Internet unless there’s lulz to be had. “How dare she, and how dare you for defending her?!” = anti-lulz
Dammit, I want moar image macros of the Crazy Astronaut Lady, and Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan are out of them!
God she’s ugly. I wouldn’t touch her with Lothar’s diarrea-laced man-package. I could only fuck her if I’d had like a 5th of vodka and about 80 GBH tabs! FUUUUUUGLY!
Colleen aint no beauty either…
Colleen Shipman is sooooooooo icky. She is beyond UGLY. She is a poor little waif. The fact that Oleforin is interested in her proves how sick he really is.
As far as Norwalk goes, I guess spoiled little princesses really can’t have anything they want.
For some weird reason, I keep trying to make sense out of this train wreck. I live up here and those two live a life style that doesn’t match Colleen’s histrionics in court. And as far as locking Lisa away for life, you need a little thing called *evidence* for that. All any of us know is what the media reports.
I thought the whole story started to smell when Lisa supposedly wore a diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop. Um – even the new hybrids can’t go that far on a tank of gas. That’s what I was originally looking for (without success) because I want to buy whatever she planned to drive without stopping for nearly 1000 miles.
There was a very tragic love triangle up here around 2002 that Billy had to have known about because he’s Alaskan too – what if he mentioned it to Colleen in pillow talk (just after he called her “Lisa”), and Colleen set the whole thing up? Heck, *I* could plot it out; unfortunately, Colly botched the “dead psycho girlfriend” part. And she did set the stage by nagging Billy O about whether Lisa was going to come kill poor little her. That in itself is not normal – so boo hoo.
So did Lisa stop for gas or does she have a car I’d really like to buy? I just don’t believe the diapers bit and once you stop believing one part of the set-up, the rest starts to crumble. I hope Lisa has a good life and that the Navy lets her peacefully retire like they did for good ole Billy O.
OK, tinfoil hat off now, gotta get back to work.
But has anybody ever taken a blast in the face of pepper spray and driven off in a car? Heck, it will stop a grizzly bear – at least unless they are used to it. Presumably Colleen is not.
I’d fuck Colleen Shipman.
tom smith–I am sure that is exactly what she would suggest you do: F-off