Houston, We Have A Problem… A Love Problem

more and more in. You're telling me they're all working against me, yes, and with you, but working through the power of ridiculous. I also know I picture everything you say. I mean seriously, like best listeners in the world. We already know that, but they come through. So this one. Um. You know how Core's light can we used to call it Sewers lights light. You know how the cans change color to you know, yeah, because it's the coldest tasting beer. I'm sorry, but it's as cold as the rockies. Um.

So like that. In two thousand and seven they did the color changing labels. Um. But now they're like, well, what happens if I poured into a pint glass? How is anyone going to know how cold their beer is supposed to be? Oh, that is a problem because so many people are drinking cors light out of my pint glass or it just like the couzy covers it up like a draft style. That's how I likes light? Can I interest you? Um? So it's very hoppy. They they've

come up with a product. It also changes colors. It goes from silver to mountain blue. Oh my god, I can only imagine the chemical involved in this. It is nail polish, and it's called chill polished. So it said the brand says, you paint your nails, hold your pint glass, and voila, see the blue or not so blue? If your beer's too warm, results going through the whole thing through your fingertips. And this does not sound like I thought you'd have to like rest your fingernails against the

outside of the pint glass. So now my finger is a mood ring for my beer. I guess. Well, here's the thing is. It's like it's supposed to be what forty three degrees or something? Is there whatever, So it's it's pretty much. You can tell what the temperature is outside. I guess if you do that, no, when you're walking to the bus stop and you look like, oh dang, it is cold down here. Um. So here's here's what they said the holiday. This holiday season, Corse Light is

bringing chill right to your fingertips. Coors Light should always be served as cold as the Rockies. But sometimes it's hard to know when you're drinking from a pint glass. Sometimes it's hard to know what is going on your life. So we've brought our cold activated technology to nail polish to ensure your pine of beer is just the right temperature dip your finger into it. So we got nail polished for all over Cores Light drinkers. As a former admin,

can I producer, Dave please tap the Rockies? Was right there, Take your nail tap them against the glass because you're tapping the Rockies that opportunity you know, well, you know what for all of these products that I am pushing, why aren't they sending me free samples? And that I am You're welcome Cores at me. They also said that it's not just for the ladies, that men can wear it too. I know, a lot of guys who were nail polished, and none of them are. I have a

lot of dead beat friends. No, I actually I don't think you know what you want to drinks core. I'm sorry, No, I don't dragon, but I have friends who do it. I'm embarrassed for that. Let's get them some nail I'm going to get them nail polishing right here, you go, Well, ask santi clause for it. It's seven dollars a bottle at the Cores Light shop on line and if you wait a couple of months, we'll be at the dollar store or yeah. Probably So that is ridiculous, certified, sealed

and delivered. Wow. Okay, Well, if you got a second before you go, I have something ridiculous for you. Yes, it doesn't evolve any cold changing technology. But it does involve technology. I like technology and love. I like love. Imagine a love story, Elizabeth. Okay, Now this love story turns into a love triangle featuring not one, but two astronauts. Yes, and one of the astronauts while wearing an adult diaper,

they never have to pull over for bathroom breaks. Drives nine miles NonStop across five states so they can confront their love rival and break up the triangle. Remember this, we have a problem, a love problem. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always Night nine Present, murder Free and Ridiculous Elizabeth. We don't cover enough love stories. We really don't. I mean, like I feel kind of I've been loath about that.

I mean, I had Guy Fieri, but I really haven't been looking to the love stories. Now, this week, I want to tell you about a love story that may live on the fringes of your memory. You said you kind of remember that. Okay. It's the story of the adult Diaper in the Astronaut Love Triangle, which, by the way, that'd be a great name for, like a new wave punk band, adult adult Diaper in the Astronaut Loves your Angle. I like it. I'd want to be yeah. Okay. Now

our hero, our heroine today is Lisa no Wack. She was a NaSTA astronaut and are ridiculous criminal now. Lisa no Wack was being an astronaut a badass. Now she was driven the very goals oriented. She's raised in Maryland. She graduates from high school in nineteen one, and she attends the U S Naval Academy. A good job for you, Lisa. She leaves with a degree in aerospace engineering. She goes

to graduate program in aerospace engineering that follows. Then after getting her graduate degree, she graduates from Naval Test Pilot School, step after step after step. June seven, she earns her wings, becomes a Naval flight officer. Now in the cockpit, she flies over thirty different aircraft. She's amazing, fift undred flight hours. Just like I said, total badass. Then she goes on

to become an aerospace engineer for ASSA. She's a badass. Okay, I'll see myself up in six she gets selected to join NASA Astronaut Core, which is the training program at Johnson Space Center in Houston. As you well know, and Houston is where Missing Control is located. Thus Houston, we have a problem. Now, before we dive into her time at NASA, Elizabeth, I would like to tell you a little bit more about Lisa, No act to more about this woman. Yeah, because they said total go get her,

straight shooter, total focused, badass, just real cowboy. I'm telling you she is a heroic figure of the American dream. Right, But Lisa also is complicated, contains multitudes. She likes to currently her stamps. She likes to fill out crossword puzzles. She loves gourmet cooking and going sailing. She's an avid runner and cyclist. She's also a skeet shooter, and she loves the soft look and feel of the African violet her favorite flower. I read a lot about Lisa. It

sounds like like her personal total. Well, it's funny. NASA has these files and all the astronauts, and it has like their likes and dislikes, like long walks, moonlit nights. You know. Anyway, so she's also a dedicated and loving mother. Now.

In an interview that she did with Ladies Home Journal, Lisa talked about the difficulties of being an astronaut mom, and she said, and I quote along the way, when I was going through all the baby training and all that, even my mother was questioning it, how are you going to be able to do all these things? Well? I don't know. I'll find out as I go, right. I like her attitude. She got plucked, you know, that's what

you want from an astro not now. Her husband also a NASA guy, so he worked at Mission Control in Houston, which means to dude's super busy too. He's doing all the same stuff, working seventy hour weeks. Now he may be guessing, oh, what does this mean for parenting duties? Is you know, Lisa the primary caregiver? It is the late eighties early nineties were talking about the expectations for men were a little different. What they could get away with was a little different in terms of not doing.

By all accounts, though, he was a very involved father, so he was a total partner with her. They were also a very popular couple, you know, very astronauty, like, you know, having parties and all that. But at the same time, not only were they socially active, they didn't wear their astronaut on their sleeves, like they didn't want to be known as Like, they didn't wear like silky jackets that said like Mr and Mrs astro Pop and we're just saw, hey, everybody coming over making jokes about

their moon boots. We were not going to move. But they're like, God, now they're like the people who go away for semester and all they talk about is like and then I don't know, like when you're in space, it's a little bit different. You wouldn't understand now, Elizabeth, When I say astronaut, what do you think of? Like? Who do you think of? What does astronaut mean to you? I feel like you're making me right, like a sixth grade essay? What astronauts mean to me? I think of? I? Okay,

this is how small and and bizarrely taped together. My brain is always think of like, you know, you have like the person and like the moon suit, right, but I have I have these ear rings that are a little astronaut guys, and like ones like reaching out. The other one is just kind of like, I don't know, bending over something inappropriate. I just admit that's what I think. What you think inappropriately sexually stage astronauts? Better ear rings? You went? You went? I was just caring. I knew

it was going to be a good answer. And one well for a lot of people. There's the moon man the MTV with the big glass helmet. So I don't see them like in a pod, like flying through the air whatever. I'd see them floating and I like that and like tethered to nothing, floating in space and having like their tether unattached in their fine did you like that, George cloy Yes, the space travel it used to be one of the most exciting things human beings. Are you

still pretty exciting? Yeah, but that's I mean it. No, I don't mean me. I think the general public is over it in terms of it being so wow and amazing. It used to be like our future. We were going to be space traveling apes, right, and then now that just boils down to Elon Musk is taking up tomorrow. That's not well whatever, But like all the rich guys going into quote unquote space, you're not going into like

space first. Yeah, you know, the low Earth orbit and all that off it would be brought back to Earth. They're not like all anti gravity and like do you think that happened? They would come back? Yeah? Or you know the other thing I think of with astronauts, astronaut Mark Kelly. Yeah, right, well he will show up in this story because I know how much you like him. No, wait, he's okay. Now, it turns out if you think about it.

What I mean about this whole the space age and all the stuff that was the cool like Kennedy era start of the space program that lasted for decades, We'll buy the nineties, don't really cared if there was a new Shuttle launch. Yeah, no one was excited to see it. They weren't like if you tell it like it's an astronaut coming to your school. It wasn't the same as in nineteen seventy two if an astronaut was coming, I

will I will give you that. You know who gets fired up still, Neil de grasse Tyson, I guess, don't you think I don't know who? I don't track. I'm just vollowing here. I feel like he would. I bet he does. As it turns out, the space race and all that it was apparently mostly a response to the Soviet dream of expansion into space and lunar conquest. In the US, we spent billions to beat the Soviets to Moon. We get there first, a lot of win the space race.

We keep doing programs, but once the Soviet Union collapses, so does our desire to go to space. Yeah, we really look at it and the numbers. It's not me. This is like just like, oh so we really just we're doing this because they were doing Okay, So now the culture though, we we have embraced space as a people. I mean it does not matter what we're talking about, from Star Wars to Star Trek to whatever, the Avengers

of Endgame, everybody. Space is the place where you areagination because for the helpful astronaut guy, exactly, sorry, it faces the place, so you know, but it is right like you think about it. For design, aesthetics and cars were made to look like rockets and looks like rockets, and you know what I'm saying, it's like it just took over things you wouldn't anticipate, like your butter design may

be shaped by space. Well, the product like the outside like I don't know, like but we started that like everyday products saved an unexpected race by the was shaped like a rocket. No, not that, like the container shaped like a stick. I don't like it shaped like butter to tell you you brought it up. What I mean it was the butter is a It's a possible example of what could have been shaped and inspired by the

space race. In this case a terrible example. If you were having company over and you let the butter get sopped and you rolled it into a rough ball in your hand. It looks like a meteor, and then you have people and you just hold your hand out. Can you go space? This is space age and they go, oh cool, put that on my bread. Would you like some space butter? So my point being astronauts, Yes, the brave ones who were willing to be shot off the surface of the Earth used to be impressive. That used

to be cool. And these people they were doing this, they're being shot off the surface of the Earth with the full confidence that us we would get them back. Like that's wild. You all look drifting off into space. It was a real risk and totally or just as as you now point out, which thank you, is very accurate, a rocket is not a safe place to work. I don't think I would approve that, like okay, well, there's also like the re entry thing, like we're just gonna holp.

We got enough stuff around. Get this angle right, Tom. Yeah. The commander of the Apolos sixteen lunar landing mission, Captain John Young, who obviously knows this stuff very well, far better than I, and I quote, said this of the dangers of his job. You put some people on top of four million pounds of high explosives, You light the fuse, and an eight and a half minutes, they're going eight times faster than a rifle bullet. What part of that sounds safe to you? Zero part of it. No part

of it sounds safe to me, sir No, sir no, sir. Well, that is, you know, for the public to understand in grand terms what it is the dangers of their job. Now, this would include the Space Shuttle, which people kind of forget. It's like, oh, it became mundane, but it's still super because it looks like a space school bus. But that thing is like, that's hardcore, hardcore. You know, it does

not have a moment of silence and respect. Will you be respectful for the first time in your life about this, saren? Does that evolve standing up straight? That's hard? Good? Okay, So Elizabeth, you had to guess how much you think it costs to launch a space shuttle dollars you want to know, I don't know. Five billion dollars space shuttle is it's very expensive? That much? Is it one of those if you have to ask it can't afford it. In line with that, it costs one billion dollars every launch,

every single launched, one billion dollars. That's what we like to check. We signed as taxpayers, like one billion dollars tax payers. Now, the reason why is it takes three million individual pieces to construct a space shuttle, and those three million individual pieces are constructed by industries in all fifty states Congress, right, and that's good, and twenty workers to prepare this one shuttle. Their labor goes into it.

So it was a very costly, labor intensive practice. And so that's why NASA was like, can we get someone else to do this? I'm saying it because also what this means is they have to constantly spend this charm camp, spend money on a charm campaign making astronauts, and what they're doing seem amazing. So we'll keep signing the checks right now, as I want to get to the the real heart of the DC astronauts what this does for them. We're going to talk a little bit about space travel,

but first let's take a break. Let's talk about some products by space travel. We'll after this little break, we'll be back with more from Lisa Nowak and the adult typers. Elizabeth A promised i'd take you to space bottom vote. I mean that figuratively. Let's just go back and talk to that. At the very beginning of the space program, briefly, those first brave test pilots who become the astronauts, and the Mercury program that they you know, they go up

strapped rockets literally. Then we had those are the guys, the right stuff, guys Tom Wolfe talks about. Then we get to the Apollo astronatzos are the ones who walk on the Moon. And then they also had the probably the bravest self rescue ever in about Paulo thirteen when they had to, you know, with Tom Hanks manage their re entry so they didn't burn up. Tom Hanks. Yeah, yeah,

Well he's a national treasure, he really really is. Then, obviously, the space program goes through some hard times in the nineteen eighties. There's a Challenger explosion, which was one of the space shows after being excited by the Space Shuttle program in nineteen eighty and by eight six you get the Challenger. Then you have the nineties and the early program continues, and then we have in two thousand three the Columbia explosion. So the program went through a lot

of really difficult periods that we were aware of. But prior to that, you know, it was amazing, amazing, amazing, right. Well, and there's all sorts of stuff always going on at like the International Space Station that we don't like keep track of. There they're they're up there. Oh yeah, totally, they're watching us, staying up there where we can't get to them. I can't see them. Would you ever want to go up there? Would you ever want to go

to space? Really? That was quick you thought about this, okay, but I'm guessing you would be all over that. I would go anywhere you putting on a rocket. We're gonna shoot you to Mongolia. I'm like, as long as I

got to ride a rocket, I don't care anyway. But the astronauts, as I tell you before, NASA used to always like kind of position them, He's like super cool, like bigger than life characters, right, And they did that because they had to justify the budgets and so forth, but also it was good for the American spirit at

the time and so forth. But the one thing that we never really talked about is the reality of being an astronaut, which is that for often for astronauts, their time and space was something that left them emotionally disconnected, depressed, and blew. And we don't hear about that because they didn't want to risk the program. Yeah, I had no idea. I didn't either. I at least it's not something that

was I didn't know how common it was. Basically, there is apparently a profound perspective shift that comes when you go and do space travel, Like if you can see the whole Earth at once, that tends to unsettle you a little essentially, and or to put it another way, if you can leave the planet and come back, it's kind of like a near death experience. For some people, it did really jars them. And you know, it's also if you want to be more grand, it's more like reincarnation.

You went to the heavens and came back to right. You know, however you want to look at it, it's wild for the person who goes through it. I can I can imagine that. I never thought of it that way. Right, and the buzz Aldrind he was the second man to walk on the Moon. He was an astronaut, doubled up, did a lot of stuff in space, and he's an undeniable badass total like, you know, amazing brain, amazing willpower.

It's hard to question the guy. You're not gonna be like, oh, he's not off, but he would often talk about how going to UH, taking his trips to space changed him. He would essentially say that he fell into a deep darkness after returning to Earth. It was a morass of despair, he said, not unlike say the inky abyss of space. But in buzz Aldred's book Returned to Earth, he talks about how this darkness impinged on his life. He talked

about how the times he'd be crying alone. He talked about how much he drank the blues he felt all his many affairs. He basically discovered there was a huge country mile wide self destructive streak that ran down the center of his soul. That's really brave to talk about too, you know, like to admit it and confront it. He hit it for a very very long time, and then it eventually came out, and so he started trying to

like shepherd some of the younger astronauts. And I will get back to him in a second, but the actor William Shatner recently went to space in one of your Low Earth or like went to space fingers now, Jeff Bezos, he said, hey, I'll take you to Elizabeth Space, and he'd takes the trip right, but it blew Captain kirk while the actor who played Captain kirk Away and and I will quote briefly from Shad, he was kind of

surprisingly bleak about this. He said, quote everything I thought was wrong, Everything I had expected to see was wrong. I thought that going to space would be the ultimate Catharsis of that connection I've been looking for between all living things, that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years

of exploration and hypotheses. But when I looked in the opposite direction into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold. All I saw was death. Jesus but expects some low oxygen levels, and he was death, and my ears hurt. No. But the this emotional disruption is bleak feeling that seemed to be very common for people who leave the Earth. You know, it is something that we don't talk about with as or not. And Lisa, no,

Walk's story is very much something that you have. Why do you have that in the back of your mind? I tell you the rest of that. I would imagine that when you said, anytime you separate yourself out from something, it allows you to see it in a clearer way. And so like when we're here living on the Earth and living our tiny little lives, you know, we're so deep in it. We don't we don't pay attention to it,

or we we Everything is like a theoretical right. And I would imagine that if you're separated from that and you look down, like it feels like it would be really tragic to be able to see the whole earth and think about, like, here's this beautiful thing, and we do terrible things to it and to each other, and like, I wouldn't want to go back. We're messing this whole thing up. We're so bad to each other, We're so bad to this planet. I'm sorry, I'm I'm you know whatever.

So that's why I probably shouldn't go space. That makes perfect sense. I can see you, I can make it would leave you completely desolated. In two thous before Lisa no Wa gets her lucky chance, it's like the worst golden tickets. Oh dude. Not only that, but a year prior, three of her friends from when she was an Astronaut Training Corps. They died in the Columbia explosion, including one of her best friends, and so she was really struck by this. And the very next year she gets, you know,

her chance. And so also I told you she's a mother of young school age children. So we're going to take a short trip to space with Lisa Nowak and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Already, Elizabeth, let's pretend it's happiness. Space is depressing as hell now and we're gonna go there, So do that before I told you. She gets a sign to be a mission specialist for the crew of the STS one to one, which is going to be Spaceholder Discoveries, which is the second trip back to space

since the Columbia explosion. Now, Lisa, as I told you, was friends with one of the Columbia astronauts, and NASA wanted to know, how is this going to affect you? Should we like, you know, bump this back. And she worked really hard to get her chance to be an astronaut. So she was like explaining to NASA, and she used her children to make her point. And I quote, I remember on that day sitting there with my son and

we were both watching together everything that's happening. And he reached over and he took my hand and said, Mom, I still want you to go. So what's a terrible tragedy to happen, But we know that there is a cause behind it, and then we're going to continue to follow that. So she wanted to let them know, like, it's a family dream, it's my dream. We're doing this. Didn't say that. July four, two thousand six, she blasts off.

She leaves the Earth strapped to the top of a rocket, heads up to the International Space Station, your third favorite place to be. And once they're Lisa operates the remote robot arm. They do the maintenance and they're fixing stuff and you know, building things and adding things. Are up there for two weeks and then Lisa returns to Earth and successfully, no no problems now at the time, what I haven't yet gotten to but now is the best time,

I imagine breaking out. She was also deeply in love with a fellow aster not so she's very excited to get back to Earth Astro and not her husband. She's very excited to get back to the Earth, to get back to his arms. That's what getting back to the Earth. He was not on the mission with her, but he was consuming her thoughts. And his name is Bill offer Line, all right, Bill offer Line. He was a former Navy flyboy pilot turned astronaut. They've been having their affairs since

two thousand four and two. Basically we're in two thousand five two point they she's a freshly minted affair. Yes, yes, exactly. She goes up into that I think two thousand five, goes up, and then he goes up in December. That's into two thousand five as well, because he's a pilot for the Space Shuttle. So no, Lisa, as I told you, deeply loved the Bill. In two thousand seven, she wrote a letter to her his mother, right, and I quote, Bhil is absolutely the best person I've ever known, and

I love him more than I knew possible. Your kindness in supporting us, even under such circumstances as have existed in the past, is nothing short of extraordinary. Fortunate that past situation is finally coming to a close, with formal separation and separate living arrangements accomplished, and I am in the process of completing all the official divorce paperwork. It is long overdue, but it is finally here, and I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you even better, Elizabeth.

She wrote that after she attempted to kidnap her love arrival for Bill's affections, she can't blame space on this is just their love affair. If you can say this began innocently enough, No, no, we can't say. You know, I have a zero tolerance. And the settle your own home. You are unhappy in your marriage, settle your own before you, before you go having before you zip and stuff out, get your house in order, and then do whatever you But that is just They were both married at the time.

They were both parents of young children. Both were Navy commanders working at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They shared a desk space at work. They also trained together. They travel to Canada and they did astronaut cold weather training together. Yeah, so they had to get warm afterwards. Now Bill gets divorced in two thousand and five. His wife serves in papers not his idea, but he gets divorceds Lisa and her husband separated, but they don't file the paperwork because

she still wants to go to space. So she's like to divorce. Ladies into space. No, She just doesn't want any any questions about her character, like do you need to take a moment? Schedule? Can't? She doesn't want anything there to basically signals weakness or for some reason that she may need to take a moment. He doesn't want. So now Bill, he gets divorced, gets his own place.

Lisa stays there often, so he gives her a key and they start, you know, their new life together, trying to do what you would suggest, although not entirely now they were ironically a very earthy couple, very passionate, right, so they're now they're all these jokes about astronauts having sex in space, right, But as I learned from reading about them, they really like having sex on Earth because the sex in space is practically impossible because the weightless

this like it's all like, hold onto this, how are you going to do it? Nothing to push off? There are people up there too, don't need to know what you're up to. But I mean, think about you talked to about the guy who wanted to have sex on moon rocks. I think I was crazy to actually have sex in space, like you know, as you're actually going to hit it. Oh yeah, but it's not the best place to do that because you're like pushing, and then you both go that direction and and then then you're

both drifting off in what happens now. Things at this point they were going well for Lisa and Bill, right right up until Bill met Colleen Shipman. Oh now she's the third angle and I love drying. Okay, So then this is another one of my things. If he cheats on you, he cheeses to be with you, he will cheat on and vice for if she will cheat. Bill was away from Houston. He was in Florida at the

Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. And Colleen Shipman she wasn't a Navy pilot like the two of them, but you know, she wasn't the Air Force. She was military, very serious and stringent, and she tested hardware for space flights and by most accounts, strikingly attractive. And she was also a little bossy known as the little General to her neighbors. Now, Colleen attended Penn State, one of your favorite schools, graduated in two thousand two with a double

major degree in chemical engineering and German keeping. Lisa gradudated high school. And so you hear there's an obvious age difference between these two women. Now Colleen is thirty, Lisa as a generation older and the married mother of school age kids. So Bill went for the younger woman. He traveled often from Houston to secretly spend time with Colleen.

The to grow close and very quickly, and the only space will separate them literally because in December two thou five he goes and he pilots his Shuttle mission to space, and while he's at the International Space Station, she sends him dirty emails like there's I found a couple, just because I know how much you love dirty emails. The subject line for one was I need to rub down and in the body of the email and I quote,

We'll have to control myself. When I see you, first urge will be to rip your clothes off, throw you on the ground, and love the hell out of you, love the hell out of really, just gonna love you up. And then like the next email from her is like a forwarded joke chain, I'm gonna have love being extruded from your pores just I love me. The astronuts want to throw each other on the ground, like the very thing I can do is to throw you on our

home planet and love. I'm just gonna push you head first into the side panel of a chevyst love you up. Get some of that tear off firm A baby now bills emails unsurprisingly lacked the same passion and fluency. Let me care remember who he's sending him to. He's like, hey baby, he doesn't say a name to keep something. Hey space baby, He's like, oh, that's what always calls me. He wrote his email to her, I need to see you.

I'm having colleen withdrawals. Must see Colleen. That's it right. Meanwhile, there's Lisa no wak totally in the dark bottle. Well no, not poor Lisa. A good bill had lied to Colleen about Lisa and lied to Lisa about Colleen. So, according to Colleen, when he told me he had this relationship and then he broke it off with her now, as Colleen would later tell the Orlando Police, I asked him, are you sure that she's okay with this? Because you

know how these things go. And I said, is there going to be some crazy ladies showing up at my door trying to kill me? And he said no, no, no, no, she's not like that. She's fine with it. She's happy for me. She's happy for me. Yes, now that was what we and the storytelling it. Did you call a lie? Can I also just say that if anyone uses your name in like your name as so and so told the Orlando police like low point, plant the flag, low point in your life, you've reached the Nader everything up

from here. In January two thousand and six, Lisa, who had been oblivious to all this, uh, she starts to get the truth because Bill returns from space. He's had them moment where he's like, oh, I need to get right with So he tells the Lisa the truth and he says, I told her that I had met Colleen and I had fallen in love and I was wanting

to pursue in an exclusive relationship with Colleen. Is he okay, he's not at least that's what you told the Orlando police that he told her actually told her that whatever. That's a quote according to Bill, when he told Lisa that it was over quote, she seemed a little disappointed, but she seemed to be accepting of that right now.

The next day she calls him, and the day after that she calls him just like the day before she'd called him and all the rest of the days that he knew her, she called him because she was not okay with him. She was lying. No, these are all very astronauts are intense people with plans and goals and messy business in there. Exactly. No, we're we have a

Lisa making plans to keep stay with Bill. So they decided to keep cycling together so she can, like you, spend time with him, and they logged flight hours in their training aircraft. And she's also you know, making while making plans about what to do with her new love rival Colleen. Well, while she's preparing for this, it becomes her new mission in life. And you know, as we've talked about how focused she is, so she's a mission commander.

She's going to get it done. So she uses her key to Bill's apartment to go and check his email, and she finds an email from Colleen that laid out her upcoming travel itinery to come to Houston and to meet Bill and to spend time. They plan to be together from February one if every fourth and so much fun.

And she also must have found the emails with the subject lines like I need a rub down, So she you know, started seeing red and Lisa now knows where Colleen will be, she knows when Colleen would arrive there, and ever the logistic Queen Lisa comes up with her mission plan. Elizabeth, I'm sure you'd appreciate A Lisa's sense of logistics. Logistics, it's kind of yours. I'm all about it. Well, here's what she does. She prints out a map from Houston to Orlando. She prints out the maps of Orlando,

where Colleen was living at the time. Then she constructs a handwritten lists, lots more lists, because you know, you have to have lists to have list I mean, you know, if you're doing a criminally insane plan. Lists for number one. So she knows that she needs a gun, So that's number one. Need a gun, Number two, need a hunting knife,

number three, need gloves, number more binoculars. Then she goes down discreet hit Man style ball cap, sunglasses, makeup a wig, trenchcoat, some sweats for the long drive, food and water, maybe some beef jerkey cooler for the food exactly, so she has all this, Oh yeah, and adult diapers. Now luckily she's got these special astronaut diapers, so she's reht to go. Meanwhile, Colleen has made the trip to Houston to see Bill. The two lovers have a good time, but not a

great time. Do you know why it wasn't a great time Because Lisa had left her cycling bike at Bill's place to kind of like mark her territory, see is it? She demands the Bill get rid of it, like I want this, take it back to her place. He's like, I don't know where. I don't know where she is, right, and so she's really upset, and she says, and I quote, it made me very uncomfortable. It made me want to pull away from this relationship because it made me think

that he didn't quite cut his ties. Maybe yeah, But then there was the other greater like clarifier for is when they were lying in bed and he called her Lisa by a mistake. She almost broke it off by then, but it was too late because at that point she had to tickets Bot, she needed to get back home, and Lisa nowak was on her way to get rid

of Colleen. Oh so, after this little shortbreak, because Lisa has hundreds of miles to go before she sleeps, we'll be back with the rest of this unhinged story, all right, Elizabeth, you ready for the big confrontation. Ready, You've got your astronauts primed. You got Bill, yeah, and you've got Colleen is very intense. And we also have our girl Lisa Nowak, who you know is just going to get the job

done queen, and she's got diepies. So after driving reportedly in her adult diapers, good time, Lisa is a little tired in moody now, Elizabeth, like she's been sitting in her own filth oh yeah, and steaming film. Elizabeth. I'd like you could close your eyes to picture it. All right, you asked for it. It's February three. You're at the Orlando airport. It's three am in the morning. You're wondering what choices you've been making when your life. You're on

a sales trip. You were in Houston selling glass eyeballs to the VA hospital system. You did great, you locked up the deal and now on your way back home. But there's one problem. When you arriving Orlando, your luggage is not there, and you're like, damn it, I want to get home. I got I got tickets to go to the Upcot Center in the morning, but my eyeball samples. Yeah,

exactly so, with your luggage and yet to arrive. You have to wait, and there's one other woman alone waiting with you there at three in the morning for your luggage. The two of you have just been kind of like, you know, keeping each other company, not really talking, but you know, making sure that you're safe in there alone in an airport in the night. Now, what you don't know is that waiting for the woman who's there waiting

with you. Is there another woman, Lisa No Whack. She's in her car, sitting alone, clutching a photo of Colleen that she has stolen from Bill's place, and she's using binoculars to surveil her target. It also sees you as you get up. Your luggage is finally here. Yeah, you get to go home. It looks like you will get to go to the Upcot Center tomorrow morning. Now time for Lisa to make her move. She gets out of her car and stalks to where you two are. She

got a big soggy kaboozapes. You and the other woman walk together to the shovel bus that'll take you to the airport parking lot. You both feel safe for not being alone. So it's three am until you're right now. Just before the shuttle bus pulls away, a third woman gets on the bus. You didn't recognize this woman. She wasn't on your flight, but she catches your eye because she has no luggage. She's also wearing a black wig.

She has on sunglasses and a trench coat. And it's three am in the morning, there's no sun out and it's nice Orlando. What's with the trench coat? So she looks like a kid's idea of a spot right right, just escaped from a Pink Panther movie. And I to the shuttle bus. But the black wig is so bad you can't help but stare at It's like a Halloween fright wig exactly. You're like, a girl, come on now. But the other woman is, you know, also wearing a nondescript ball cap, like a hit man in a Michael

Man movie. So you're like this feeling safe? I don't feel safe. So the shuttle bus drops the three of you off in the airport parking lot, and you're like, okay, do you each walk to your car? But you notice that the other woman in the one of the bad wig in the trench coat, she seems to be following the lady from your flight. You're getting your car and you decided not to leave right away. You watched for a moment you have a bad feeling, and he watches

the woman from your flight. Colleen reaches her car, the woman in the bad wig and the trench coat Lisa, and following her. Colleen like, you looks nervous. She Colleen rushes to open her car door. She manages to get it open and get in safely inside. So she's like, feeling a little better now, and you're feeling a little better. Everyone, we're all feeling good, except for people wearing black wigs are feeling better. I mean, you're feeling as best as

you can. For three in the morning in Orlando, everything's looking up. You're about to do things coming up millhouse. But before Colleen can start the car, Lisa slaps the car window. Colleen and you both practically jump out of your skin. You're like, what now. Lisa sets through the car window. Can you help me please? My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up and he's not here. I've been traveling and it's late. Can you give me a

ride to the parking office? And you can't quite hear her response, but Colleen is like, although, if you need help, I'll send someone to help you. Smart Now, Lisa isn't about to give up. She's driven way too long to get here, so she says, can I use your phone? And Colleen's quick like you she's ready with a good lie. She's like, oh, my phone battery is dead? Know is

a complete sentence? Good answer? Can yeah? And then hit the gas peel out Lisa, she's getting desperate because she's worried that Colleen's is gonna peel out and do some donuts. So she's like, okay, what I got left? She starts crying. She just starts starts crying, and that's when I really hit the gas and get out of there. So she's like, okay. Colleen's like, I can't hear what you're saying. And you know, Colle must have felt a little bait because she starts

to lower her car window and you're watching. You're like, girl, no, and your instincts are right, because just as College is explaining by saying my phone battery is a debt, she gets hit in the face with a spray of pepper spray and Lisa just laded into it. Oh yeah, it's pretty much painted, right, Colleen shouts, bitch right. Her car is already on, She's got the engine idling. She pours in with a face full of pepper. Spra goes through the parking lot escates. You're like, what the hell is

going on? Is this like some like mid level marketing thing going on? I don't know about what? What is this marketing? Ward? Lisa has just blown her kidnapping, That's what's right. She drove all those miles in the adult diaper for nothing. Half an hour later, Lisa will be in custody. The Orlando Police will arrest her after she gets spotted disposing of her bad black wig and the

baby gun that she had read writer exactly. But when the police take apart in Lisa's car, the cops discover a mallet of four inch porge bucket exactly, not a hammer, I'm not like, as your beef. She also has rubber tubing, yeah, and rubber gloves, and the cops discover a set of bondage photos that were her inspiration for what she was gonna do, Like this is how to tie a knot restrainer person? Like what space made her? A real sick of I don't know. I don't think. I think she

just needs to not work. She's like, these are the best examples of knots I can find online. I don't know, no, no, come on now, I don't think it was kinky, though I really did based on I think she was like, you know, it's like called maybe degradation, but I don't think she was getting off from it anyway. The DAS office, they decide, we know what to do with this, so they charge Lisa with attempted murder, attempting, being attempted burglary,

destruction about attempt at illegal tubing. In the police report, there was one oh my goodness, go on, I'm giving you that one. I'm going to give a little space, thank you. Now. In the police report, there's one particular detail of the story that jumped out. This was a detail that ended up becoming the story. There are these specially made diapers for astronauts. Now exactly the technical terms. What you gotta say it like that, like you're like

like that's like you're spitting bars. Like I just got to the front and I said, hey, where is your diapes in the store? Like all I want is diapes? But girl, she sent me with twenty bucks for some diapes. There it is, since it takes a long time to get you out of your space suit. Astronuts they wear adult diapers because they just you know, just they must be like high quality for astronauts. Absorbent. Yeah, now they're called maximum absorption garments mags, mags. They really are called

mags andr mag's there, Steve, like adult action diapers. It's not a good of an acronym. I can see why they don't use it, but it's more fun to say, I'm gonna tell I'm rocking mag's now. Of course, I wanted this to be clear. I don't need to make fun of anybody who wears adult diapers. Don't nothing wrong with adult diapers. The whole point of the funny part for me about this is how the adults talk about

the adult diapers. Well, it's the idea too that like, it's not she just does don't want to stop the car because she's out to kill some lady. Yeah, that's that's like the fact that you're going to put on dopies and do that like this is the only way, honestly, it's like that's not however, to take to pee like Seriously, that's minutes here, ten fifteen minutes. Seems a little intelligent, That's all I'm saying. Admittedly, I have taken the big Gatorade bottle with me. I know her thinking I get

it now. At one level, though, you just say adult diapers, it does kind of sound like adult passifier or adult feeding bib. It's like, oh, the adult part becomes comical because it doesn't belong adults were diapers. There's nothing. It's

just more of a sizing thing. You know it's right, so you buy the right one, right anyway, Like I imagine if we did have adult passifire, you can just like pop it in someone's mouth and they're being called cigarette cranky three it's called vaping, sar and look it up. He says it's adult passifier. I guess he doesn't really do the job I'm talking about, or you'd be like, you know, you're so grouchy. Sure, but this is you're about lollipop. There you go, Steve, there you just suck

on it. There you go, Steve, calm down, Yeah, okay, I want lollipop. I mean that would work too. But returning to the adult diapers, Yes, the if you're willing to do yourself and sit in your own filth just so you can make better time. That is where the key of the funny is in my opinion, And you agree, right, you know the adult diapers part, You know, it's the

focus for the group. You would imagine late night talking about They jump all over it, Jimmy Kimmel joked, and like quote, a woman is willing to wear diapers, don't have to pull over in the car. I would marry that woman exactly, so like a bunch of sexy that joke, Jimmy Kimmel. I had a dream about Jimmy Kimmel last night that he had his own line of orange Blossom honey. But I didn't want anyone in my family to consume it because we also were supposed to hate him, because

you're not supposed to have any opinion on him. But that's that's weird that you're mentioning him. Yeah, well, Jimmy Kimmel adult action diapers. Yeah, well, but it wasn't Jimmy and the rest of the culture. These diapers became a thing like and specifically the astronaut parts. So like my favorite of the franchises, Law and Order, Criminal Intent, they

did or ripped from the headline. I don't watch TV, but I would assume it was a badly center imagining if if it was something I could ever watch, if you maybe might have thought you watched, well, there was also something you might have liked. To Ben Folds of ben Folds five, he wrote a song about it, brick no cologne, Oh yeah, I don't know. Also your favorite rapper Common minding a song driving me wild, this choice lyric driving himself crazy like Astro not lady, right, turtle

next to tight Now Lisa no uck? She uh the Florida State, They're like, look, you need to get that or Landa. We're sending you back to Houston. They put a GPS ankle bracelet on her so that way the state of Florida will be warned as she crossed over the border back into Florida, and they sent her back to Texas. So she gets to Houston. Her parents are there to meet her, which is really nice, and then there's also the international media there to meet her, which

is not so nice. Pretty nice. They just sound in her neighborhood like a pack of vultures, just like ready for any pickings, right, And there's like all the you know, there's the Daily Mail, the Sun, the New York Post, but also see an instance at Satellite Truck, Wall Street Journal, New York Shires. Everybody's there, Dr Phil, He's had a fed package to the house. No, it's just like, you know, like him was asking for an interview. I don't know it was inside the box, but we know that what's

in the box. What's in the box? I thought you were going to say that Dr Phil was camping her Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box. That's where that the whole standing of seven comes from. His astronaut diaper was shoved in her mouth. So I'm glad you mentioned the astronaut. Mark Kelly, I'm just gonna skip right to him. He steps into the middle of this media storm to try to calm down the noise because he's a decent guy.

He's just a dude. Yeah, He's like, Oh, I called Lisa last week and she sounds pretty depressed to me. We're gonna try to get together with her this week. She has nothing to do. She just sits in her house all day every day. And he's just like, you're going to humanizer, which is really the thing I think that's important is people forget they're like astronaut, astronaut, astronaut. It's like, no, no, just person. For a woman has to deal with the consequences of her actions. Well, no,

it's not what I mean. But anyway, Lisa, she loses nearly everything, but not her freedom. She only she gets a plea deal. She manages to get a year's probation, and she makes very few public statements in that time. But outside of the courtroom, she did apologize to Colleen. She said, I know this has been very hard for calling Shipman, and I would like her to know how very sorry I am for having frightened her in any way and about the subsequent public harassment that has followed

all of us. Now, this media storm has at that point had long since moved on, because and Nicole Smith passed away like two days after all, it's pretty space ye love, what a time he was just living. So the folks in Hollywood they decide, you know what, this story, this is a movie, So they get Natalie Portman to star in it, and it keeps the story alive in the culture. Except for the problem is that the movie bomb. The movie was terrible. Get generally. Well, it was called

Lucy and the Sky. The reason why you never heard of it is because it's what we in the Hollywood business called terrible. Is that an industry I'd like to give you the technical terms. Yeah, the film tank because and when it tank, Natalie she blamed the adult diapers stop it. But really she blamed the lack of adult diapers because Portman and the director decided to leave the diapers out of the story. They decided, you know this, this astronaut, a droves and a diapers, We're just going

to do the nine D miles. They missed such a good scene of her in the bathroom trapping up, like waddling out with a tight fit, Like, how are you going to leave out the space diapers? I mean, if you're gonna be playing it for that to the desperate silver,

the space diapers, duct tape, duct tape on diapers. When she leans over the window of Colleen's car, likes leaking out the leg because it doesn't have that like Huggies technology, doesn't have the absorbent grip like the two year old toddler leg that I was like, Oh, nothing's going to escape this diaper. And that's just like, how do you do it? Like you gotta have to those chubby toddler legs. Okay, Slate went so far as to also like disparage this movie.

They wrote a piece with the title, I'm boycotting Natalie Apartment's diaper less Astronaut diaper movie. Really get to the point, and in response, now the Apartment to the only Times and she said, oh the diaper sadness. True story. She really did. Now. She also added a little more salient appraisal if you'd like a little more from Natalie Apartment. It was an interesting detail because it was something that seems so radical to all of us listening to it,

but actually it's part of an astronaut's life. They wear diapers the whole time because that's what you do in space. It's not like it would be an unusual choice. It seems like a lot nuttier if that's not something you do every day. But I guess I still have a diaper movie in my future to fulfill everyone's expectations. Natalie, so she was not in space going to Orlando. They wear them in space, Natalie, the diapers, no, not on her. Didn't not get it. No, But you know, for fans

of diaper levies. You got something to look forward to now on the bank for you in the chamber, how to eat your coming After After the international media moves off, Lisa no actually finally gets to speak publicly about this adult diaper situation and clarify the record. She says something to her Naval review board about whether or not she

gets to stay in the name. She did not. She testified under oath that they she was quote not wearing the diaper, but it had been in the car since an evacuation real during Hurricane Rita more than a year before, right, So She's like, they weren't. It's not come on, I helt Maybe I had them in the car sape in the back. Yeah, I just keep them around in case I need them. Right now, there was the reason why

this all came about the earthquake kitneys. By the way, there was an Orlando detective named William Beckton who started this whole adult diaper business because he wrote in his report that he opened a trash bag in Lisa's car and discovered two used adult diapers. I then asked Mr. Noak why she had the baby diapers. This is Nowak said that she did not want to stop and use the restroom, so she used the diapers to collect her urine. But he never took any photos of their dirty diapers,

because he photographed a bunch of the other evidence. But he decided, we don't need images of dirty diapers. I'll just put that in the report. And that's what her lawyer used to basically argue, we have no proof. Right, he went on and I quote, the biggest line is preposterous tale that has been told is in my client drove from Houston, Texas to Orlando, Florida, NonStop wearing a diaper that is an absolute fabrication. There were toddless size diapers in a car when she was arrested, but there

was several years old. Is it is no big deal? Businesses simple that vintage to some retro diapers. She's a diaper collector man, aficiona that Houston tour Lando pipeline, bad astronaut business man. According to her lawyer, Lisa Nowak didn't wear any of the adult action diapers. She just drove nine miles to confront her rival, and that's all that it was. And you know, she had to carefully construct a set of maps and the mount and the hunting knife,

but leave out the diapers. People, come on, what are you delicious? Now? There was one person who also agreed with him, Colleen Shipman, who told the news program quote, I don't mean to be offensive or anything, but that's pretty superficial. I mean, you don't you think the woman committed a crime and the headlines are saying that, oh, she wore a diaper, so yeah, added bonus, that's the power windows in this sports car. In the end, things worked out better for Colleen, though she and Bill wound

up getting married. They moved up to Alaska. Colleen became a writer, She published a novel, and she and Bill now have a son. Until Bill meets the next young things, she's like, where are there a lot of men now? Meanwhile, Lisa divorced her husband, most recently in twenty nineteen. Her lawyer told People magazine to quote that Lisa is now in a better place than she's doing. Well, she's in

a better place. All's well, that ends well. And for being for you, I'm going to go get us some of those NASA adult actions for our next long drive or for you just for sitting around if you want, for like, oh, I'm not watching TV, but if I was for the next six hours later. Thank you. That's a good idea. Thank you. So Elizabeth. A second, what's a ridiculous takeaway? Don't go to space. That's stop go to space. It's not where the space is not the place.

Well man, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing that story. Well you know, I just know how much you love stories about human philth sitting in it for long periods of time. I found this one. I was like, well, you can find us online a Ridiculous Trial on both Twitter and the Instagram. Twitter that's where we put up at the posts and you can respond to us. On Instagram you can do the same, but it's most likely gonna be a picture now. We also have an email account.

If you want to send us a story or the tip, or maybe a confession, you can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We'll be back later with another insane tale of ridiculous criminality. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime by Elizabeth Duddon and Zaron Burnette, produced and edited by buzz Aldrin's fan club president Dave Couston. Researches by the Unofficial Mayor of cape Canaver marisk of Brown. Our theme song is by ground Control to Major Tom Lee

and Space Kid at Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben I want to go to Space Bowland and No Yes, I'd also like one ticket to Space Brown. Disquiet Say It one more Time? We Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.