CRIME: The Astronaut Love Triangle

October 16, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Astronaut Who Fell to Earth

At 3:20 a.m. on February 5, 2007, Colleen Shipman pulled her suitcase off the baggage carousel at Orlando International Airport. Her flight had been delayed, her bags were slow, and after a weekend away with her boyfriend, all she wanted was her own bed. A woman in a wig and tan trench coat sat a few seats away. When Colleen caught her eye, the woman looked away. Colleen rode the shuttle to the parking lot, but the woman followed. She broke into a run, reached her car, threw her bag inside, and hit the locks. Then came the banging on the door. The woman was crying, begging for help. Colleen cracked the window—and that's when the woman pushed a canister through the gap and sprayed a chemical in her face. Police arrested the woman minutes later. Her name was Lisa Marie Nowak, a decorated NASA astronaut who had been orbiting Earth seven months earlier.

A Career Built for Orbit

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What you'll learn

1 (00:43) **The Attack at Orlando Airport** - Colleen Shipman is followed and attacked in a parking lot by a woman in disguise.
2 (03:24) **Introducing the "Astronaut Love Triangle"** - The host frames the case: how a top astronaut ended up charged with attempted murder.
3 (05:48) **Lisa Nowak's Stellar Career** - A look at her impressive background and rise through NASA.
4 (07:40) **The Columbia Disaster and Its Aftermath** - The tragedy that shaped her final years at NASA.
5 (09:12) **The Triumph of STS-121** - Lisa flies a historic, high-pressure mission to space.
6 (11:03) **The Secret Affair Begins to Unravel** - Lisa's personal life falls apart after her return.
7 (15:05) **Bill Moves On, Lisa Discovers the New Woman** - Bill begins dating Colleen Shipman, triggering Lisa's obsession.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Early on February 5th, 2007, Air Force captain Colleen Shipman was walking to her car at Orlando International Airport when a woman in a wig and a trench coat followed her, banged on her window, and sprayed a chemical through the gap. The woman was Lisa Nowak, a NASA astronaut who had flown aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery seven months earlier. Nowak had driven roughly 900 miles from Houston to confront the woman now dating her former lover, a fellow astronaut, in a case the tabloids named the astronaut love triangle. Police found a knife, a mallet, a BB gun and latex gloves in her car. She was charged with attempted murder, and became the first astronaut NASA ever fired. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces the two decades of work that put Lisa Nowak in orbit, the obsession that unravelled her in a matter of weeks, and what the case forced NASA to admit about the mental health of the people it sends into space.

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