NASA pilot dismissed due to ties with Lisa Nowak

William Oefelein, a US naval officer and NASA astronaut is being shipped back to the Navy on June 1 for reasons pertaining to his extramarital affair with fellow astronaut, Lisa Nowak whom he left for another Air Force captain leading to the Nowak episode that happened in February.

William Anthony "Bill" Oefelein (42) joined NASA in 1988 as a pilot and was married to Michaella Davis, his high school friend, with two children, for 15 years. He divorced her in 2005 to go on with an intimate relationship with Lisa Nowak, who was also married at that time and separated from her husband only last year.

But after around two years into the relationship, Oefelein ditched Nowak to date Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman which provoked Nowak to attack her with a pepper spray in the parking lot of Orlando, Florida Airport on February 5, 2007.

Nowak was held against charges of assault, kidnapping and destruction of evidence and she awaits trial this September. She was also dismissed from the NASA in March and sent back to the Navy where presently she’s reassigned to the staff at the Chief of Naval Air Training in Corpus Christi, Texas.

She was reported to have driven from Houston to Orlando, Florida to go one-on-one with Oefelein’s new girlfriend carrying a knife, a steel mallet and a BB pistol and wearing an astronaut diaper so that she wouldn’t have to stop anywhere in the 1000 mile (1670 km) drive.

Astronaut Bill Oefelein took leave from NASA after the incident and went to join girlfriend Colleen Shipman in Florida.

The NASA officials communicated the decision of his dismissal on Wednesday and said that after his completion of the assignment as the pilot of space shuttle Discovery on an International Space Station assembly mission in December, its time now for him to return to Navy.

Kylie Clem, a spokeswoman at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston said, "The Navy and NASA have mutually agreed to end his detail to NASA."

According to Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Doug Gabos, Navy agreed to reassign William at NASA’s request. It would send him to the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Va., where he will work in the field of satellite communications, starting in July.

Oefelein piloted Discovery, the last 13 Day International space shuttle mission in December and has been working in the astronaut office since then. He entered NASA as a TOPGUN pilot and joined the U.S Navy Test Pilot School as an instructor later on. He completed his first mission as pilot on STS-116 and has logged over 3000 hours in more than 50 aircrafts and has more than 200 carrier landings.

Lisa Nowak, born on May 10, 1963, became interested in space when she was a mere child of five. Hard work etched her way to success and she became an astronaut for NASA in 1996 and also qualified as a mission specialist in robotics.

Nowak, who is now a captain in the US Navy was selected by NASA in 1996 and entered the Johnson Space center in August. She went into space on July 4, 2006, on the STS-121 mission, which included a trip to the International Space Station. Her NASA assignment ended on 8th March 2007. She has a login record of more than 1500 hours in 30 aircrafts.