Hey everybody, Hey y'all, welcome back to the show. Thanks for being here. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you. Very excited for this episode. I'm excited because we are in just a couple of weeks going to be out in Los Angeles. We're going to Palm Springs for a friend's wedding. So some friends of ours who moved from Atlanta to l AW they're getting married in beautiful Palm Springs. Uh So, Yeah, it's gonna be so cool. We're road tripping out there. We're gonna go to the wedding, We're gonna stay and hang out with my uncle in l A for a little while, see the sites, learn the city a little bit. Very excited. So if you sometime before early March or listening to this episode and you've got ideas about food, cool stuff to do that's a little off the beaten trail, anything like that, shoot us a message. Would love to hear your rex for l A. Yeah, cool events. Always love that art spaces, weird little shows, anything like that. Totally, and we want to know. Meanwhile, we're gonna be bringing you spicy content right here are ridiculous romance. Uh and you'll be getting it while we're gone to Oh yeah for sure. Yeah. In fact, check on our instagrams and you'll probably see our whole our whole journey in some form or another. Definitely. I feel like I never post online. I'm like here, look at this for Fringe, or I'm like here, look at this for the podcast, and I'm like here, we're on a trip. So my life is actually interesting for once to check it out. True, Yeah, I got nothing to post on Instagram When it's just like, I don't know, what do you want to see the grocery store, I'm like, well, sometimes I work in the front room at the desk, and sometimes I work in the living room. Big changes, But here we are today, another exciting episode. You might remember the story of Lisa Noak, bill Offaline and Colleen Shipman as the astronaut love triangle. They really saturated the whole news cycle in early two thousand seven. Now, naturally, the media made this into the most sensational story they could. They turned this incident into a total joke. But of course, once you know us, once we started digging into it, we found out that there's so much more to the story. So let's strap in and learn all about these space cadets and they're out of this world. Story that rocked the country in by four three two what we have left off? Whoa hey that French Come listen. Well, Elien and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making, a romantic tips. It's just about pardiculous relationships, a lover. It might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons that are a concrete wall. But if there's a story where the second glance ridiculous role that a production of I Heart Radio. Okay, So, like we said, you've probably heard the story about how crazy Lisa Noak is, but you know, we wanted to get to the bottom of it. We wanted to go back and learn all about her and try and get some context as to who she was and how she got to the point that America learned all about her. Lisa Marie Caputo was born on May tenth of nineteen sixty three in Washington, d C. To a computer consultant and a biologist. In nineteen sixty nine, she sat glued to the TV next to her parents, just like the rest of the country, and watched Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins leave Earth on a mission to the Moon, and from that day on she was totally fascinated with the space program. Of course, at that time, all astronauts were men, so you know, we just imagine that at some point a convo like this probably happened. Hey, Mr teacher, one day, I'm gonna fly up into space, just like Neil Armstrong. Little girl. Everybody knows only boys can go to space. Why if women could leave the planet and leave all the men here behind, they well, they'd uh, you know, they'd probably never come back because we won't let him do anything, so we can't let him do anything or else. They'd be mad that we don't let them do things, and they believe forever it's circular logic. Don't you worry about such complicated subjects? Little girl? Well, yeah, moron something like that. I feel like she might have said that to herself, maybe not to the teacher. Kids used to be more respectful, But fortunately in ninety eight, NASA Astronaut Group eight changed all that. They were the first group to include both women and minorities in the astronaut program. Among them was Sally Ride, who would become the first woman and the first lesbian in space, So stay tuned for her episode later on, and we'll get deeper into that exciting world of women entering the space program. But for Lisa, she saw this happening and it became clear to her that this was not only her calling, but something very achievable for her. She was among the first women to attend the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapple List, where she graduated in ninety five with a BS in Aerospace engineering. And while at school, she met and fell in love with Richard T. Noak, and three years later, in April of nineteen, they married, and then in n they gave birth to a son. That same year, she earned her two degrees in aeronautical engineering, including her Masters of Science, writing her thesis on everybody's favorite subject, Computational investigations of an N A C A zero zero one to air foil in Low Reynolds number flows. Oh my god, I love that one. I think it was an Oprah's Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, you know me, and I mean every It's not even cool to say this because like anyone would say this, but I love the computational investigations of an N A C A Oh twelve and then you throw it, You're throw it into a low Reynolds number flow. Oh my god, forget it. I'm I'm good for the weekend basically in the club. And also, yeah, I don't want to just point out how outrageous it is that she was pregnant and gave birth to a son the same time that she was finishing up two degrees in aeronautical engineering. Concluding her master's like right there, I'm like, well, I'll never achieve anything that impressive in my life. No, that is that is definitely worth noting. But then in May of nine, six out of twenty four hundred applicants, Lisa was picked as one of the twenty five mission specialists in NASA Astronaut Group sixteen, and she and her family moved to Texas. Her husband, Richard, left active duty as a naval officer and got a job as a flight controller at Mission Control, although he did stay in the Naval reserve. So Lisa went through intense training. She studied geology and the Shuttle systems, survival training, zero gravity training, all this cool stuff that she completed, all that, and then in early two thousand one, she became pregnant again, this time with twin daughters. Talk about an overachiever. Her womb was like, I gotta keep up with this light. She's like, let me just knock the next two out simultaneously. It's more efficient this way. If I learned anything from the computational investigations of an N, A, C, A, tears or whatever, you have twins, she said in an interview with Ladies Home Journal. Quote, It's definitely a challenge to do the flying and take care of even one child and do all the other things you have to do. But I learned you can do it. Her specialization was in the robotic arm on a space Shuttle, and in two thousand one, the Space Shuttle Endeavor went to the International Space Station to install a robotic arm on the space station, and Lisa was on the team on Earth Admission Control that helped instruct them on how to do it. In October of two thousand one, she gave birth to the twins. So while she's doing all that again, pregnant with twins, the whole time, I'd be like, well, listen, I'm pregnant with twins, right, good luck with that robotic arm. So at first she and her husband after the twins were born, would alternate their work schedules so that someone was always at home with the kids. But in two thousand two, Richard was called back to active duty for George W's Operation and during Freedom a k a. The War on Terror, and she was left effectively as a single working mother with a ten year old boy in infant twins and again working mother astronaut. Yeah right, not just not just any old working mother, which is already so hard, but also an American hero. And then things got even harder for Lisa, if you can imagine that. On January six, two thousand three, NASA launched their one hundred and Space Shuttle mission STS one oh seven flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Aboard the shuttle, we're three of Lisa's classmates, including one of her best friends, Dr Laurel Clark. During the Columbia's launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off and damaged the thermal protection system on the shuttles left wing, and after a fifteen day mission, as the shuttle returned to Earth, it broke up and disintegrated on reentry, killing all seven crew members on board. In a two thousand and six interview, Lisa said, quote, I remember on that day sitting there with my son and he reached over and took my hand and said, Mom, I still want you to go. She said that the tragedy was in service to a cause and she was still committed to that cause. Horrible because you know people were watching it. Everyone was horrifying. It's like The Challenger when everyone was watching that and you just knew how I mean, just horrific. So in the event of the death of an astronaut, NASA assigns their family a personal Casualty Assistance officer. They really got warm. Yeah, the deuce everything to it's like most scientific rhetorical terms. I mean, it literally sounds like a robot. Here. I am to observe your emotions. Yes, yes, cry on my six to three universal shoulder device. Damn, She's like, my robotic arm is a lot more comforting than your. So Lisa volunteered to take that position for Laura Clark's family because she was so close with them. Laurel's widower, Jonathan Clark, who was a former NASA flight surgeon, said that Lisa came in and just did everything for him. Quote, she went through everything, Navy paperwork, finances, bills, bank accounts. She took care of our son Ian during the months afterward. She's here twelve to fourteen hours a day under the most difficult circumstances. I have to think it was hugely stressful, right, because her husband's still deployed, right, and so she's still got her own three children to take care of that, right. Yeah. Yeah. So in two thousand and four, Lisa took part in an eleven day cold weather survival training course where she and a half dozen other astronauts and cosmonauts were dropped off in the wilderness of Quebec and they had to make their way back to a base on foot and presumably survived sort of the main thing. And among those astronauts was a man she had met briefly in the mid nineties while they were stationed together, and his name was Bill off Line. Bill off the Line was born March twenty nine, nineteen sixty five, and grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. He got his BS and electrical engineering from Oregon State in night. In nine he became an aviator for the Navy, and in nine he was selected by NASSA to be an astronaut candidate in Astronaut Group seventeen, and after two years of training and evaluation, he was promoted to astronaut as a Space Shuttle pilot. Sounds like a pretty standard series of events for an astronaut, right sure, yeah, yeah, because the a couple of years, a couple of years of this, Yeah, train here, train there, get promoted, fly a plane an astronaut. I have to stay easy. Yeah, why didn't we all do it? I have to say, I feel like this cold weather survival course is probably a little bit easier for the from the last I was thinking that you should get higher marks if you're front of Mississippi and you manage it, you know what it's like because you're like, I'm not familiar with this white powder ship. That is very true. He's like, oh, I've had a pair of snow shoes strapped to my feet since birth. He came out in a dog slide. He's like building an igloo. Everyone from Florida is like, what listen, I could find a gator, but I don't know what you're doing. Yeah right, Yeah, what happens if Bill's got to go down to do a survival coast in the swamps? Yeah, now here we go that's we need to switch it out. Exchange you go to cold weather training cold weather, you need to go to swamp. That's how we test the metal of astronauts. Yeah, or we just commit to sending only the northern people to cold planets and all the Floridians to hot planets. Everyone with any science background is like, it's cold in space. I mean, there's no swamps out there, but are you kidding me? Look, Venus is just one big swamp from from what I know. That's a good point. So if we send anyone to Venus, it should be all the Floridians, I mean astronauts from Florida, not allis. We love you, Florida, We do our little neighbors to the south. So Bill was at this time married to a woman named Michaela. And there's really very little information out there about their marriage besides her name and the fact that they had two children together. But life for married astronauts can be really tough. Jonathan Clark said that there's a huge amount of marital stress in the astronaut court in general, and he said, quote, it was hard on our marriage to have my wife gone all the time, and eventually for her career to surpass mine, and short before Bill's wilderness survival training, he and his wife, Michael, is separated. The timeline isn't super clear here, but Bill says that he was already divorced when later that year, Bill and Lisa started a secret affair when they returned to Houston. And we will get all those spicy and spacey details right after this. Okay, mission Control, it looks like we're back and Houston. You have a problem. That's right, a big problem because even if Bill was no longer married, Lisa was, and not only should two astronauts in training together not be hooking up, but as Navy officers, the two of them could be charged with conduct unbecoming of an officer under the Uniform Code of Military Justice because this includes adultery commandments. Yeah, I guess, well, actually, yeah, I wanna, um, if you'll permit me, I'd like to dock at Space Relation Station, and I want I want to I want to hear what you think might be on that list besides adult tree conduct unbecoming of an officer under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Do you think it's like, oh, this, this right here is a kernel and yet he's loading his mugs on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. What animal? I agree that is chaotic energy. What about um? I mean surely there's some dress code stuff, so like if you have your buttons undone shovel office very unbecoming iron that ship military style, right, yeah, and like no mixing fabrics patterns at tie a brown built with black shoes. Discharged dishonorable to chart court martial. I saw somebody putting mustard on their pop tarts on Twitter the other day and that I was like that, that's a dishonorable discharge. That is, it's like a regular fruit pop tart, fruit pop tart. This is conduct unbecoming of a human being, and you should be dishonorably discharged from Earth from the species on the planet. Well, anyway, they were definitely trying to keep this little affair super secret for more than just the usual reason, right, but Sam Gwinn of the Texas Monthly referred to it as quote a very intense and emotional affair. They trained together, they shared a desk space in their office building, and they helped each other out in their careers. It would be on even just a work romance. They also joined the same cycling team and trained together for races. At least they even left her bike at Bill's apartment since that's where they would start and finish all their long rides together. Okay, they were like growing it out now. Of course, Bill was fresh out of a rocky marriage, which okay, So, just to clarify, even his own former mother in law of Michaela's mother said that Bill and Michaela's issues had nothing to do with Lisa. So this is all after the fact. Um. So now he comes in, he finds someone who's got a lot in common with him. She's pretty, she's smart, they've been in an intense survival situation together, like he built her an igloo probably at some point, so it's totally understandable why he got interested in her. But what's going on with Lisa here, married, three kids, career on a great path. Well, we already know how much stress she was under with her three kids and her husband being gone for so long off fighting the War on Terror, and obviously the recent loss of her friend and co worker. But Lisa was also gearing up for a mission that everybody was very focused on. The STS one one mission on the space Shuttle Discovery. This mission was all about testing new safety and repair techniques that were introduced following the Columbia disaster, and Lisa was going to be on board. She was going to space the dream right wants to achieve at some point in the culmination of all the work. All the Reynolds whatever already forgotten, do not have a science mind anyway. She had been selected for the mission in two thousand four, along with her classmate Stephanie Wilson. And side note, Stephanie would be the second African American woman in space and to date, her forty two days in space are the most of any African American woman. She's also a candidate for the Artemis mission, so she might be the first black woman on the moon. Yea for Stephanie Wilson. And I am so excited about the Artemis mission. We're going back to the Moon finally, finally, you know, finally, take me with you, am I right? I wonder if all the conspiracy people are like, so is Stanley Kubrick on board? Yeah? They got de Villeneuve this time time. They're like the cinematography for Dune was just NASA can afford deny Villaneuv. They probably got Brett Rattner in there. Yeah, exactly. So, Yeah, this mission put a lot of weight on Leafea's shoulders because not only did the recent Columbia tragedy emphasize the very real threat of danger, but it also meant the public was very focused on this mission and success was absolutely necessary. The entire country was literally watching her, and she felt that and if she wasn't stressed enough already, this definitely pushed her farther than she'd ever been tested. So again, we're talking about someone three children, taking care of her friends. Uh, you know, all those stuff you have to do when someone dies. She's trying to help with all that. She's taking care of that child as well, Like, plus all this national pressure and probably a lot of fear. I can't imagine, imagine. Yeah, your dream is to go to space and you're working on it, working on it and helping it happen, and then you watch the people who go to space like die pretty horribly. Like that's not I would be questioning everything at that point. Should I be doing this? Let's say it's like that, and that that thing with her son telling her I still want you to go, You know that's that's wonderful because they all understood, like the risk was always there. This doesn't really change anything, but I almost wonder if that wouldn't make it harder because you're just like, oh my god, this kid loves me so much that he wants me to do this thing. How can I take this risk? Yeah? God, I can't imagine. It's so true. Plus it must be weird too, like when you get close to achieving a dream and it is very scary and you're questioning it. Probably feel a little bit of like, um, I don't want to say shame or guilt, but just that thing where you're like, well, this is what I've been working toward. Now I don't want it, Like what is happening to me? I don't understand what I want anymore? And little now this and do I know I knew about this all the time. Suddenly I'm feeling scared. I don't know. This is why I never finished a project. Yeah, because I get towards the end and I'm like, I don't want to I don't want to be done. Oh right on? You know, Okay, I was thinking more about that fear of success. Well that too, because I have definitely felt that, like, oh, all I wanted was like win an Oscar or something. But then I'm like, imagine if everybody knew your name horrifying. Yeah, yeah, that's what's holding me back. I would have won an Oscar by now if I just I wasn't worried about people know my name, right, I kept it small on purpose. So, yeah, she's stressed out is basically the main takeaway from this. And she took comfort in this guy, Bill, who was a friend, handsome, smart, under standing, someone she knew she could trust. And Bill had finalized his divorce in two thousand five. He found a small apartment and gave Lisa a key, with or without Bill. Her marriage to Richard was on the rocks, but she wasn't really ready to end it, probably because those three kids, I think, and also him fighting that must feel weird too. And Bill also gave her his computer passwords so she could take care of work while she was at his place, So this like a pretty close I don't even think you have my computer password. I have no idea. Also, this was like two thousand five when there was only one computer per household, you know, so they probably didn't have their own a MacBooks, you know, definitely not He's like, go go work on that three pound computer room. So she was originally supposed to lift off with STS one in two thousand five, but during the launch of STS one fourteen in July of that year, the exact same problem that caused the Columbia explosion happened, where like a piece broke off during launch, so that that shuttle returned safely, but more research clearly needed to be done, so her mission was postponed another year. And I'm imagining that stress. I mean just thinking like, Okay, next month, I'm going to go to space and might die, and you're getting ready for it, getting ready for it, and then they say, hang on, you have to sit with this for another six months, one more six months. You know, like that must add so much tension to it. Definitely, you know, it's like getting stuck at the top of a roller coaster hill. I was thinking very similar, or like in the line right, because I have a very you know, I'm terrified of a roller coaster, so in the line is almost worse than the ride right where I'm like really getting like, oh god, it's going to be so much worse than I think and you're just getting roll in your head about it. And then you get to the frontal line and they like go to the rush line and they let twenty people in in front of you, and you're like, oh my god, I'm not getting on yet. I have to sit with this very stressful and then I immediately go, you know what, I'm just gonna get stopping wait for y'all outside. That is what happens. But eventually it came time for the launch. The crew celebrated a pre launch reception at the Kennedy Space Center and Lisa's husband, Richard, and their three kids were all in attendance there. And finally, on July one, two thousand six, the crew boarded the Discovery for launch. Lisa was the last crew member to enter the ship and at two the countdown began. Ten nah eight, oh no, a thunderstorm scrubbed the launch, So we'll come back tomorrow another night. You're freaking out. So the next day they tried it again. Ten nine, Are you kidding me? Again? Damn it? Florida? Seriously, though, why I don't know why they choose Florida for launch of these ships, which has the most unpredictable weather in the country, so they didn't even try on July three, they just skipped that day altogether. But on July four they loaded up the ship and probably just skipped the countdown altogether. They're like, and Lisa and the crew of the Discovery launched into space. You think by then she was like, alright, whatever happens, And they were like, you know, ten not She's I heard it all before. And then they finally take up. She's like, oh, ship, we're actually doing this through okay. At least they did some cool stuff with the robotic arm in space, not just the one on the Discovery, but she actually got to operate the one on the I S S, which she had helped install over the radio back in two thousand and one. That's cool, spat relation station. What was she doing with that arm? Was she like patting herself on the back propit, like goddamn, I did amazing. I see her like High five and other robotic arm ships flying by. Maybe she like catch caught an asteroid, threw it back, playing catch with her father, the son. She's like hanging ten. All in all, she was in space for twelve days, eighteen hours, and thirty six minutes and traveled five million miles. Oh my god, that's like from East Atlanta to Midtown. Too much time for a new Proclaimers song, I guess. So the Discovery landed with no issues on July seventeen, Big side of relief. So Lisa was home and she was an American hero. So the crew members went on this big publicity tour. They were throwing pitches at baseball games. I wish with a robotic arm that puller. They were doing interviews, signing autographs. They were just inspiring the ship out of people, and Lesa met up with students at naval academies. She spoke to kids at elementary and middle schools, and attended a celebration at her own academy in Annapolis for its thirtieth anniversary of admitting women to the school. And she even spoke in the UK at the University of Lee's with one of her crewmmates. We don't know exactly what caused the deterioration of Lisa's marriage to Richard, except for that sort of generic truth of astronaut life is tough that we kind of have heard from other astronauts. But Bill was more than just her secret lover. He was her friend and confidante. Their sexual relationship seemed to be secondary to how much they just looked out for each other. But for Lisa, things were getting more serious. Shortly after her mission, she and Richards separated and they were in the process of a divorce. Lisa actually emailed Bill's mother and said, quote, Bill is absolutely the best person I've ever known, and I love him more than I ever knew possible. Your kindness in supporting us is nothing short of extraordinary. Fortunately, the past situation is finally coming to an end, and I am in the process of completing all the official divorce paperwork. So we get the impression that Bill's mom was into this. Lisa even said even says an email like, uh, even though my parents have not been very supportive, it's great how supportive you've been. So, you know, maybe her family is not loving that she's divorcing Richard and hanging out with this new guy, Bill. But Bill's mom is like, oh, you're great. You're what my son's always wanted. You know, you're an American hero, right. Yeah, maybe she should a CC Bill on some of these because even if she's sending emails to Bill's mother, Bill was cooling off on their romance. He generally considered their fling to be a temporary fun like friends with benefits kind of thing and something like enduring le romantic, and whether or not he was clear about that with her is a mystery to us. Now. We didn't know what they ever talked about or whatever, but they definitely had two different ideas about what was going on between them. I mean, you should if you're whether you're in a you're just dating, or you're in a secret affair, like you should probably be clear about what your expectations are for a relationship that's true, or if you're if you start with expectations and your feelings deep in and unexpected things happen to you like you're you know, you might start something casually and then it turns in more than you expected, but that should be something you don't tell the guy's mom about. You should tell you about four and you can immediately email his mom and say how much I'm in love with But I won't say anything to him because I don't make things awkward. And again we don't know. She may have talked to Bill about that, and Bill might have been like, yeah, sure, that sounds good you know, we don't know if he was clear, or he might have been leading her into believing this was something more than it was. Yeah, I really don't know who knows. Who knows. That's one of those things about a relationship that's very hard to see from the outside. Yes, yes, and again, just makes communication the foundation. It's the most important thing. Yeah, very true. I always says in our theme song, no romantic tips, but there's just one for you. Get on the same page, just at least at least get on the same page. Around this time, Bill had been selected to pilot the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS one sixteen, so he was frequently traveling to Florida for special training, and there he met Colleen Shipman. Colleen worked for the Air Force in Florida, testing hardware for space flights, and everybody loved her. She and her roommate crashed a party that Bill was at, and she later recalled quote, I was laughing that entire night. He's just kind of off the wall funny, which is very hot. Funny. Guys are great. I'm just saying, I mean, well, and the world of astronauts. He's like, have you heard of one about the computational investigations of the n A c A zero zero one to airfoil and low Reynolds number flows. I haven't what is it? So I don't know. Hang on, I got something of this and he says, ers zero one to airfoil, more like trying to make a Reynolds wrap. It's really not working out. Have you heard the one about the computational investigations of an NSFW zero zero one to airfoil and Reynolds number flows. And then he shows like a robotic arm, like doing a jack off motion. Yeah, if there's one thing I know about meeting women for the first time at a party, it's go for a jack off joke. Hilarious. It always works perfectly, Yes, romantic tempts. Now Bill initially told Colleen that he was a firefighter, and specifically the kind of firefighter who parachutes into forests to fight wildfires. He said that he just didn't want his introduction to be this kind of cheesy, like, hey baby, I'm an astronaut, you know. So he thought that sounded arrogant, so he tried to tone it down. I'm like, tone it down, I'm an astronaut. Let me, let me come up with something a little more humble. I parachute into wildfires, like, are you serious? Yeah? I don't want to. I don't want to sound too puffed up and arrogant, you know. I just all I do is skydive into a forest fire and take care of it myself single handedly. There's nothing but a super soaker and a bottle of desany. That's right. I've saved many baby animals. But I'm not an astronaut or anything, and I'm no hero. I'm no hero, I'm no superman. But it doesn't matter. Colleen saw right through that, because she is not a complete idiot. She worked on satellite launches, so obviously she knew the crew of the upcoming Shuttle launch and this guy was going to be the pilot. But she said, quote, he was really exuberant and very nice, polite and energetic. When you meet somebody who's so charismatic, you just want to be around them. That's what it was. So they swapped numbers and the next night they went out for pizza, and then they started to see each other more. Whenever Bill was in Florida, they would hang out, and Colleen even made a few weekend trips to Texas when Bill was at home, and Bill knew that in order to have an honest relationship with Colleen, he would have to end things romantically between him and Lisa. So he met with Lisa, and he was honest. He told her he'd met someone he was happy with her. Lisa would always be his friend, but he was falling in love with Colleen and they wanted to be exclusive. And Lisa basically responded by saying Okay, cool, sweet, perfect. Bill said in a statement that quote, she seemed a little disappointed, but she seemed to be accepting. She even said she hoped that Bill and Colleen had fun on the upcoming weekend they had planned together. But how did she really take it? We'll see the dark side of her moon right after the Welcome back to the show everyone, And that was one small step for Bill and one giant leap about to happen for Lisa. Yes, Um, Bill and Colleen's long distance relationship continue to develop, and he told her, you know, I've broken it off with Lisa. That's all behind us now. He said he and Lisa would remain friends, but quote, there's no romance there or anything. Colleen even joked with him later telling ABC News quote, I asked, h is there going to be some crazy lady showing up at my door, you know, trying to kill me? But Bill said no, no, nothing like that. When the time came for Bill's own launch into space, Colleen was right there. She stood next to Bill's mother at the observation site and together they clutched hands as the di recovery made liftoff, and she was cool with Colleen to I mean, I'm saying Bill's mother is really kind of a cheater here. I'm going to call out Bill's mother as the source of all these problems because she's trying to play both sides. She's just like, I just want some one to marry my son. I don't care which one of it as it is. She's like I hated that michaela anyone but her. Her casseroles were just not acceptable. I don't know what kind of woman his mom is. Well, she loves a casserole. Who doesn't love a cast role, That's the real question. I know I'm Southern here, but come on anyway. So, among the personal items that Bill took to space was a small picture of Colleen, which he taped to the shuttle console. And a small charm she gave to him, which is cute, especially when you consider how few things they probably get. Bill even made a phone call to Colleen from space. That's really going the extra mile. But Colleen said, quote, I didn't wreck agnized the phone number on the caller I d so I just let voicemail get it. It was him. I didn't even know that was possible, and I didn't answer it. Okay, you gotta text somebody and be like, hey, I got a new number. He left a short message saying that she was the first thing he wanted to see when he landed, and they sent emails back and forth while he was in space. She wrote to him, quote, We'll have to control myself when I see you. First urge will be to rip your clothes off, throw you to the ground, and love the hell out of you. He wrote, quote I need to see you. I am having colleen withdrawals. Must see Colleen. All right, I'm just saying James Joyce's James Joyce's Love Letters to farts. We're better than this. But that's okay. You know what they were doing there, but their astronauts, they're no Nicholas Sparks books coming out of them. Yes, not quite the evocative emotion you expect from the longest distance romance. All right, very true, very true. But that's okay. They're trying, you know, they're trying to sext a little bit, trying to keep the romance alive. Not everyone's a Syra now. So after Bill's returned to Earth, they saw more and more of each other, and they regularly traveled between Florida and Texas to spend time together, and Lisa and Bill stayed in touch pretty regularly too. She called him every day, though Bill later said quote, I wasn't always receptive to the phone call. But if he didn't answer, she just left him a friendly message. They still biked together regularly, and they were still Jim partners. Bill was glad because everything worked out fine. Look, everybody's happy. I got the woman of my dreams. I got my best friend over here, I got to go to space. Mom's happy, no matter what. Someone right. So everybody was happy, except they weren't. Sam Gwinn wrote in the Texas Monthly Journal, quote, it is perhaps a measure of Bill's capacity for self delusion that he believed Lisa was accepting of this, as he later told police. Lisa, of course, had not accepted any of this. I have to say, I don't know if it's his self delusion or maybe possibly also hers, because she is acting like she's fine. What is what other conclusion is he supposed to draw? I guess I wonder if she was, because the person who says she was acting like everything was fine is consistently Bill. He's the only one who's weighed in on this, So she might have been like, uh, oh, okay, Well, I guess if that's what you want to do, then all I can do is wish you well. And he's like, great, cool, sounds like you, totally approved, sounds good to me, and just as oblivious to her tone, her mood, her atmosphere. Don't know if we can only spatulate here, um, so I can't really say for sure. Also calling him every day, it's definitely yeah, that's a little weird. I don't know. Maybe some people talk to their best friend every day. I don't talk to my best friend every day. No, definitely frequently, but not every day. No, especially calling on the phone. What am I? What am I? In two thousand seven? But I do, uh talk to most of my exes pretty regularly. I have stayed friends with most of my exes, um, and you're even friends with most of my exes at this point, because you know, these are people that I shared time with and we we became really close and it didn't work out romantically, but we still have something as friends. And that's that's important to me. For those people that I liked, you know, and still continue to like despite you know, various levels of how it ended. Uh, still found a way usually to remain friends. Not always, but if they called you every day, if they called me every day, I wouldn't answer. And if they were like if I was getting a re like this person might be obsessed with me a feelings, Yeah, probably be time to at least address that, if not layoff and kind of disappear right. Well, anyway, people are inscrutable, That's that's very true. That can be true anyway. One day in late January, while Bill was at work, Lisa used her key to break into his apartment. She had been obsessing over Colleen for at least a few weeks now, and she wanted more information about the woman who had seduced her lover away. She lugged onto Bill's computer. I guess he's never changed his password. There's one he's like astronaut password, space man, spaceman, He's like Major Tom or something. She's like, I know, it's rocket Man. I know what you're talking about. So anyway, she put in his rocketman password and opened his email. Do think he used rocket mail? Do you remember rocket Mail? I do now, But if you had asked me to name it a second ago, there's no chance I remember that. So she opened his email. All the steamy correspondents from his time in space was there and more, and Lisa printed several messages out and took them with her. Then she saw the itinerary for Colleen's upcoming visit to Houston February one to February four. Lisa printed out maps with driving directions from Orlando to Houston and hand wrote a detailed packing list. Plastic gloves, glasses, makeup, sneakers, black size eight black sweats, a sharp knife, a gun, binoculars, a baseball cap, food, water, and a cooler for the car. I like all these like neferius things. And then and make sure you have a cooler because I'm gonna want a cold drink. I mean, I'm bringing jelly. So Colleen arrived in Houston, and she had some strange feelings when she got there. She was having a hard time with Bill's X being so present in his life. She asked about the women's purple bike in his apartment and Bill was just like, Oh, that's just Lisa's. But she later said, quote it made me very uncomfortable because it made me think he didn't quite cut his ties. Maybe. After going out for drink Saturday night, they got back to his apartment, climbed into bed, and started to get busy, at which point Bill said, oh, Lisa, Oh awkward. I mean, like, I don't think this situation obviously he's got Lisa on his mind. But I will say I think we should cut people slack for saying the wrong name. Yeah. I almost call you Hobbes like four times a day, you know, but I might. It's entirely possible. My brain with just And it's not because I'm thinking about Hobbes when I say it's just, I'm just going through the list of names I always say. So I guess not. I mean, I've never had this problem myself, so I don't know how to respond to this. I do know that like some parents, like my parents, for example. Yeah, like Jannis family member until they finally found pets. Yeah, so that definitely happens when you're angry. I don't feel that that happens necessarily the same way when you're an extremists, all right, way, and on this folks, you can send us a message or something up a pole. And do you think it's bad to call out someone else's name in bed? Or is it really fine and not a big deal somewhere between? Is it like that again? Everyone perfectly acceptable and actually a little exciting to throw out another name once in a while. I Oh, Tilda, Tilda, who's Tilda exactly? Tilda? All right? So super awkward. Um, but it was all fine. They smoothed it out. On Sunday night, she took her scheduled flight back to Orlando, and she landed just after one am on February five. Colleen's bags were delayed for over two hours, so she decided that she would just wait for them. The airport was quiet. It's not many people around in the Orlando airport. At two o'clock in the morning, and in the shadows lurked a woman in a hooded trench coat round red glasses, black sneakers, and a black wig. It was Lisa. She followed Colleen all the way to the baggage claim and she stood just a few feet away from her as Colleen picked up her bags. Then, around three thirty am, Colleen hopped into an empty shuttle bus and Lisa followed. She looked so ridiculous in this like cartoonish disguise she had on. She might as well have had one of those like big noses with the glasses. It was just so noticeable that Colleen was definitely super suspicious about this woman that followed he around to the shuttle. I'm imagining it's probably a really bad black wig. All that like sits a little high on your head. You know what I'm talking about? This woman. I don't know how to put this on. This woman wrote a paper called Computational Investigations of an n A c Zer zero twelve Airfoil in Low Reynolds number flows. She don't know how to put a costume together. She needed help from a theater friend. I'll tell you what. When Halloween rolls around, she goes straight to party City, grabs something out of the bag, and calls it a day. She has probably sexy astronauts. I was going to say, probably straight up foam astronaut costume. WHI should be so funny because you'd have like a good one, like maybe NASA doesn't let you just walk out for Halloween, you knowing someone's going to bombit on that all of a sudden, we gotta sho can borrow this one point six million dollar suit for my Halloween costume? Tonight? I'm going to a great party. There's a really good prize for the costume contest at Chili's. I really wanted. Do you know how many margarit does? That is so Colleen is on this empty shuttle bus just with Lisa being weird as ship in the corner, and Colleen got off at or stop. She went quickly to her car. Just as she closed the door, Lisa came charging straight at her. She tried to pull the handle of her front door, but Colleen had locked the door. Lisa banged on the window and shouted, can you help me please? My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up. Can you give me a ride to the parking office? Now? Colleen is an Air Force captain and not a great a idiot, as we've noted before, so she simply said no, if you need help, send someone to help you. Lisa said she couldn't hear her, and she started crying, She's really distraught. So Colleen cracked open the window just two inches and Lisa quickly whipped out her pepper spray and maced Colleen. Colleen shouted, you bitch and sped away. I last your bitch. I mean there was two words came to mind, and that's what yes, So Colleen speeds away. She called airport security and within minutes they found Lisa trying to throw away a bag that had a loaded BB gun pistol in it, as well as the wig that she had been wearing. Lisa was also carrying a second bag that had a sharp knife and a brand new steel mallet. Having left the day before, Lisa drove over nine hundred miles from Houston to Orlando without stopping so that she could catch Colleen. At her arrival, Lisa's car was searched and it also contained rubber tubing, plastic gloves, and all the other crazy stuff from her list. They're like, oh, but there's a nice cold drink in here. Police also found printed out bondage photos and drawings in the car, and when asked about the weapons, Lisa said that she never intended to hurt Colleen. She just wanted to scare her into talking, and then if she didn't talk, she would have used the bb gun to scare her and just wanted to hear her talk. Well, that's okay, person, and yeah talk about what. Yeah, I met Bill at a party. Was funny. We started dating. That more information? Do you need ben? Dating seriously for a while now and y'all broke up? Yes, so get your bike out of a man's house, That's what I got to say. Also, Yeah, creepy that those bondage photos were in there. I guess she was like looking at how to tie someone up, which I imagine is what the rubber tubing was. For sure, I was going to ask what the bondage. That's a little weird, but that makes sense. Yeah, she's like going a shabbari, not enter a chair. She seems like this better not awaken anything in me. Lisa ties her up and it's like this elaborate, beautiful rope design out of rubber tubing, right, and you know you gotta work with the person being tied up to Colleen's like, well, that's more comfortable thinking it's about connection. So Lisa was charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, attempted burglary, battery, and destruction of evidence. And this is the first time an astronaut has ever been arrested. Police cited quote the detailed planning by Noick, the fact that she wore a disguise, her prolonged surveillance of the victim, the fact that she passed up numerous opportunity at East to contact the victim as evidence for the attempted murder and kidnapping charges, right because you know she's saying I just wanted to talk to her, and they're looking at the security footage and they're like, you were following her for hours. You had every opportunity to talk to her, and you chose to wait until she was alone in her car Like in face, yeah, yeah, I don't think you want to talk to fellow astronauts. Flew to Florida and t thirty eight jets to appear before a judge on her behalf, and while the state argued that the facts laid out a well planned attempt to kidnap and potentially injured Colleen. Her lawyer argued quote one's good works must count for something, and she was released on bail on the condition that she wore an ankle monitor and not contact or approach Colleen a NASA placed her on a thirty day leave. The story got into the news cycle quickly, and they had a lot of damage control to do. Some people were claiming that pressures of astronaut training and the presentation of them as our greatest heroes was too much and this sort of snap was inevitable, but others focused on some dumb ships, and y'all, if you've heard this story, this is probably what you know about it. When Lisa was arrested, police reportedly found a case of toddler's diapers in the trunk of her car, two of them used. When asked, Lisa reportedly told them that she had used those two so that she wouldn't have to stop on her drive from Houston to Orlando, and later her attorneys said that the diapers were left over in her car from when she and her young children had to flee Texas during Hurricane Rita back in two thousand five. But you know how the news is. They focused exclusively on this aspect, and it just blew up in the reports. You know, at late night, hosts went hard on the jokes, got Jay Leno out there, Hey, yeah, you had about this one, the lady and the diaper chin flapping, jin flapping, and headlines claimed that she drove across the whole country in a single astronaut diaper, like the kind they have to wear on on launch and reentry. Yeah, just just never changed, wearing it the whole time. None of this was really accurate. It was all kind of bullshit, and regardless, it was totally irrelevant to what was going on. Even Colleen later in interviews, said that she wished people would just drop that and focus on the actual issue. She said, quote, that's pretty superficial. Don't you think the woman committed a crime and headlines are saying that she wore a diaper. That's so true because I know, for me, I was like, I know, this lady wore a diaper to like drive to her boyfriend's house. That was like legitimately it. I didn't even know that there was a dispute. Uh, and the fair thing that she committed a crime, I really only knew about this diaper thing. Yeah, so that's very interesting. That's such a tiny really just a tiny detail in the story, right, and that obviously is what made it blow up, and frankly, it's what led us to want to put this couple on our list. But then learning the story, you're just like she's I'm glad we get a chance to kind of tell this version of it, because obviously that was nonsense and so just looking at the wrong thing the whole time, So moving on, forget about that part was never a big deal. So the murder and kidnapping charges were eventually dropped, and Lisa was ultimately charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor battery, which she played guilty too as part of a plea deal. Court psychiatrists evaluated her and diagnosed her with O C D Asperger syndrome and quote a brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors at the time of the incident. So I guess that's like a psychologist way of being like, she snapped because you're a lot of pressure for She was sentenced to one year of probation with no additional jail time. In two thousand eight, she actually completed her divorce and was given full custody of her children. I think that's interesting. There's something about the U. If she weren't an astronaut, if this is just too crazy Texan and a crazy Floridian, like two women you never heard of, like this would never make it past page ten of a local newspaper. Nothing, nothing really happened. You know, there was a minor assault, some pepper spray and this lady and it looked like this lady mnd have on something real crazy, but she didn't. So all that kind of swept aside, and once she was sort of evaluated, it was interesting that, you know, I don't know what Richard was doing that made the judge be like, no, yes you can have full custody woman who at charge on her record, But it does kind of show you. I guess how they were able to kind of minimize the whole thing. Maybe so or I mean, maybe because she had raised them so exclusively while he was overseas or something fed into that, right, I don't know. Maybe he was still an active service and couldn't take full custody. I don't know. Or maybe they were just like, let's not push this lady anything further. She might show up at Bill and colleens for no reason at all. Right, Um, yeah, I don't know. What I think is interesting too, is that they had this psych psychiatric analysis, But don't you have to go through that to be an astronaut in the first place. Well, this comes up a lot. Did they evaluate their astronauts properly? And after this happened, you know, NASA had to do a lot of damage control, and one thing they talked about was like, we'll try to adjust how we're evaluating our astronauts before and afterwards. But this wasn't something that they would have caught at a given time beforehand, necessarily if she wasn't under that kind of duress. I guess, Yeah, I don't know something you already had. Maybe maybe they were again, maybe they were dormant until you know, this sort of like brought it out. I'm not a psychologist, believe it or not. I don't really know how that works. But but if you do, if you get into more of a deep dive about sort of NASA and this whole incident, a lot of conversation about mental health in the astronaut program, how they're dealing with that, how they're catching that ahead of time, and what they're doing okay. NASA basically informed Lisa and Bill that due to their adultery, they would no longer be employed as astronauts and kind of handed the whole thing back to the Navy to handle her. In two ten, she received a less than honorable discharge from the Navy and a demotion from captain to commander. In seventeen, People magazine reported that she was living quietly in Texas with her children. She lives a pretty quiet life working in the private sector. Meanwhile, Bill and Colleen actually worked it out. Bill retired from the Navy in two thousand eight and they moved to Anchorage, Alaska together. In two thousand nine, they went on a wilderness trip together and Bill had an engagement ring stashed in his fishing box. At the beginning of the trip, he proposed and she said yes, And they were totally out of cell service and everything in the wilderness of Alaska. So he programmed his emergency tracking divid to send out an alert to his family, but he didn't realize that the device automatically inserts the word help before every message, so his family all got a text saying help. I asked Colleen to marry me. And she said yes. Not only that, but it kept repeating the message for a week until they finally got back to civilization. They were like, I've made a huge mistake. To be fair, I sent out the same text. I know you did. I she said, yes, I'm not anticipating that. I really was hoping she'd throw this ring in my face. That's hilarious. Help has to to marry me, and she said yes. Colleen has spoken about the incident a little bit more than anyone else. She said, quote, the crime hasn't defined us at all. It's not an issue in our lives today. She spoke to People magazine in mostly to protect Bill's reputation. She said, quote, the Air Force treated me like a criminal and NASA treated Lisa like a victim. While she enjoyed an immediate thirty days of leave, I was run ragged, made to report in, moved into an apartment on base, and ordered to have no contact with Bill. She said the media made him out to be someone horrible, but she knew him as a great guy, and that they helped each other get through this whole mess, which I have a little sympathy for that. Again, I mean, you know, she did do something crazy, So it would be really weird to have her positioned as like, I mean, a victim, oh Lisa, Yeah. Um, And definitely Colleen have to deal with all this stuff like she had done something wrong instead of been attacked randomly out of nowhere. But she has an American hero, so I guess you have different perks with that. I think that's just what makes it complicated and worth really taking a second look at, because you know, obviously, yes, Lisa assaulted someone, she planned something really dangerous and harm full and might have really hurt somebody if she had been given the opportunity to do so. Um. But we can look at the causes for all that what led her to it and at least have some sympathy um, but certainly not. It's not a defense for that um. And Colleen, for her part, was practically oblivious to any of this happening and literally did nothing wrong. So like she was, out of all three of them, Colleen was like the most innocent bystander of all, Like she wasn't having an affair, she wasn't sneaking around on anybody. She was just found a nice guy and wanted to settle down. Yeah, Sam, Gwynn writes, quote, we may never know exactly what was in Lisa's heart, what she thought, felt, believed, or dreamed, how desperately she loved, or how compulsively she hated, or why she would do something that was guaranteed to ruin the extraordinary life that she had spent forty three years meticulously craft ding. But he and a few other journalists do dig into the rigors of astronaut life and the extreme stress that they're regularly under. And like we said, but the mental health issues that kind of stem from that and can make that existing ones that can make that more difficult than it would have been otherwise. NBC reported on the issue in two thousand seven, saying that many astronauts are inherently huge overachievers with ambitious goals, and once they've gone to space and come home, they're kind of left a bit stranded. Jay Barberie of NBC said, quote, most every one of the astronauts came back from space with adjustment issues. Buzz Aldrin, who suffered from depression and alcoholism after his return to Earth, for example, said NASA quote can deal with the physics and engineering they behave predictably, but you can't predict the human reaction and how complex it is. He said, Lisa had to be somehow asking the question what do I do next? But nobody is helping them to readjust wow. So they're saying like, once they reached the zenith of all their all their goals, they're sort of moralists and they don't know, yeah, what they're working towards anymore. You've got to imagine these are people who, from high school or earlier, were fully devoted to this dream and probably logged more hours than you or I ever did, working while they were still kids, leading well into adulthood, years and years and years trying to achieve this dream of going to space. And they go to space literally the most outrageous, seemingly unachievable a goal you can achieve, and then what's next? And that's that comes up a lot with astronauts. There's a movie very loosely based on this incident with Natalie Portman that came out in twenty nineteen called Lucy and the Sky. Oh yeah, yeah. It's very very very very very loosely based on this incident, um but they focus more on that on her having gone to space and coming home and feeling very disillusioned with the world and not really feeling like she had a place anymore. Um, it's you know, it's kind of to just nerd, to like nerd relate it real quick. It's like Bilbo going out on his journey with the dwarves and seeing a dragon and finding the ring and all this stuff, and then going back to the Shire and they expected to just like farm, you know, and he's like, how am I supposed to live a normal life after I've gone to space? Sure, you know, we'll put plus you see the planet. Yeah, I mean I know, for example, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, they all spoke about how crazy it was to see the planet so small, and I don't know how small all the stuff that happens on it seems when you're that far away. And then you get back in it and everyone's like, well, climb, climb back into the mere. Yeah. Like a minute ago, I was so above it, like literally and figuratively that like this seems so petty. Yeah, and why do I want to Why do I care about this? Yeah? And again yeah, there there was a lot of conversation after this incident, and I'm sure still about exactly these issues. I mean, Plus, you can't tell anyone about all the aliens that you've seen, Yeah, you know, walking around out there. Oh my god again Hello, Hell, we heard you mentioned aliens. Of course we had a stuff in you wanted to. Oh boy, for newer listeners, if you haven't heard the whole show, we've had these aliens crash our episode a little while. Although I appreciate you guys seem to have beamed in today instead of crashing through the roof. Oh that's nice of you, Thank you. We decided it was the least we could do after destroying our home three separate occasions. We know they get ready for Yeah, I heard you're talking about that type lady. No, No, what's your name again? My name is oh Zark and this year is my friends feak directly GLORLEI globe, keep exact leap globe. That's the one. It's a very challenging pronunciation, and it's well, look, no, that's not the issue that we're talking about. That wipe that from your mind. This story is about a complicated relationship, mental health issues and the struggles and the rigors of astronaut training. It is true that when we came to have the planets, we tell them many secrets that you cannot know. That you will never know that. We only came to see you our favorite podcast, Ridiculous Romance. All right, thank you for stopping in. Yeah, yeah, we always we always love you. Coming back. We'd like to join you on your trip to Los Angeles. I've always wanted to meet Charlie Chaplin. It's a bad news for you on two counts there. I don't think he's such a good guy. And it's been dead for a while. Oh well, not have a dream even in Hollywood. Well then we'll just go back to our planet. I suppose. Okay you are I did everyone back home that Lisa No, I didn't wear a diaper for nine hundred mile. Yes, we will spread this information throughout the galaxy. It will be less well respected. How okay, can you do a lot of planet loves wearing diapers since we have not invented indoor plumbing. Before diapers, we were just pooping in the streets, and we poop from four different holes. WHOA, please don't poop right here? Okay, yeah, maybe it's time for you guys to head out. Okay, thank you, goodbye. Okay, man, they have really bad timing, they really do. We're like trying to wrap up the story. And if I'm being honest, I don't think they had anything to say that time. No, I don't know why they It seemed like a last minute jump in that they hadn't really thought out too clearly before they showed up. We'll forgive it. That's fine, so anyway to wrap up. Of course, being an astronaut can be even more challenging for women. Surprise, something is more challenging for women. Away, that's not a thing. See it with my own two man eyes. Well, try opening them sometime and you will. Oh my god, Oh it's terrible. I'm going to close these again. Commander Eileen Collins was interviewed by Sam Gwynn and said quote, I tell young girls that the two best jobs in the world are being an astronaut and being a mother. But the difference is for a woman, the husband usually also works, so you end up doing the work at home. Sometimes I just had to stay awake to get the job done. When do you answer your email? You do it at home because you have no time at work. And John Clark, the husband of the woman who died in the Columbia explosion, said that women astronauts quote make more sacrifices than the original astronauts did. They have to balance two careers. You don't come home at night like most of the male astronauts and have everything ready for you. Very important point about pretty much everything. And I say, why not, excuse me if my wife's an astronaut. Yeah, I can make dinner while she's off astronaut ng before she comes home. When you make dinner now? And I'm not an astronaut. Oh yeah, Wait a second, how come you're not an astronaut? Is that not enough? I mean, I think that's a good point. You know, you you you got the double shift, right, Isn't that What people talk about with working women is the double shift where they go to work and then they come home and they have to continue being a full time mom and caregiver and so on, and that many men not all men, of course, but many men don't contribute to those things. Is especially even if they're like I cleaned up a little bit and I watched the kids for a while, Like they're just not doing as much as the women are doing. Um, And so yeah, that makes it doubly trip le difficult for women to achieve anything, because I think the men's mindset must be, well, my role is to have a job, and your role is to do the house stuff. If you want to add a job to that, that's up to you. I'm not I'm very progressive and I'll allow it, but you know, but I'm not going to cover for you with the other stuff. I guess I don't get that. Yeah, it's I rolly for sure, because it's just like, especially in this country now, when you kind of need two incomes to pay for things, like you kind of too need to astronaut incomes to handle things in this country. I mean, I know people achieve it, you know, with one income, but I'm just saying it's it's less of a one or the other than it used to be, right, And so now it's sort of like, well if you have to have both, And I guess we need to really be talking about a more equitable division of this home labor, these chores. And I appreciate that she Lisa and Richard tried to handle that until he got called back to duty, you know, where they sort of alternated time off of work to handle the kids. And stuff. I know a lot of people have that arrangement and it works. Well, you have wonder fuh Richard wasn't on the phone with w saying, Hey, don't you need me come out there? These kids driving me crazy. I'm in the reserve. Maybe that's why she divorced it. She was like, oh my god, he keeps saying I babysat the kids today. You're there, bother, you pace our ship. It's not babysitting. I don't know. We don't know, Richard Richard Richards like, I love watching my lad right right, I don't know. But yeah, that's this is a tough one because you're so right about the mental health stuff being such a such a interesting aspect of it. Who knows what it's like to leave the planet, right, I mean that must be kind of a mind fuck all on its own, let alone all the extra work that goes around to being able to leave the planet. Yeah, and you know, I'll say this is another story too of just like sensationalism in the headlines, really influencing everyone's opinion about this story for for decades, right, And it wasn't hard to find the rest of this info. I just had to Look, you know, it's not like it was being hidden by the mainstream idea and all they talked about was the diapers and stuff. It's just that's what trend did and whatever trending was in two thousand seven, and that's what everyone was talking about. Yeah, that's what's going to get you to click the headline. But if you see something outrageous like this, there's a good chance that there's another story behind it, you know, more than likely. Yeah, so if there wasn't, that'd still be worth looking into. Right, I'm like, wow, she really did do that. That's okay, we need somebody to come talk to about personal hygiene. I mean, right, you need at least change your diapers, you know, after every use. But again, it's like, what where did that even come from? Just a passing reference. There weren't even photographs in the police report of like the diapers in the trunk or anything like that. It was just like a note on a notepad like, oh, she said they were for this, and then everybody took that and it became the crime of the century. But again, at my goal I think would be to separate that element from this story, which is about way more interesting and important things. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So I hope that's what you got from it, dear listeners, And I hope that all you aspiring astronauts out there take a little time for yourself, a little mental health day now and then yeah, maybe maybe have a therapist talk about whatever comes up from whatever happens in your space training and everything. Like I can't even I can't even come up with a scenario, but because I don't know anything about it right right, Um, But yeah, even without the kids and the marriage and stuff, there must be so much fear and excitement and anticipation and everything around going to space that like it would be very helpful to sit and talk to someone about all that for real. And beyond that. Also again, even if you're not an astronaut and you're just have having a little fling with someone or having a super secret dangerous affair communication, you know, talk about it beyond the same page. Don't have one of you thinking, oh, this is the rest of my life and the other one going like, we're just friends when we get to bank. Sometimes that's great recipe for disaster. Yeah, and here is your disaster. I just took it out of the oven. Recipe complete. Here's the disaster. It's a pepper spray in the face and a whole trial for attempted murder. It's a pop tart covered in mustard. Oh no, the worst recipe, the ultimate recipe for disaster. Well, y'all shoot us a message. Let us know how you take your pop tarts. Yes, let us know about your dreams for going to space. I am, like I said, I'm very excited for the Artemis mission. Yeah, it's it's about time we go back and give that moon a piece of our mind. Collectively, whatever it is we do mos like, I'm just over here regulating the tides. Okay, I don't know why Matt I'd been said, shoot us an email romance that I heart media dot com. Yeah, or we're on social media Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Dianamite Boom and I'm at oh great, it's Eli and the show is at ridic Romance. And don't forget to tune in for another episode later this week and we will catch you all the next one. Thanks for listening, by so long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friend's name's uncle Sandance to listen to our show, ridiculous roll dance