Astronut Lisa Nowak’s romantic rival wrote of wanting to make passionate love to her spaceman crush, according to one of the saucy e-mails that allegedly led the flaky flier to strap on a diaper and drive 900 miles to attack the other woman.
“First urge will be to rip your clothes off. Throw you on the ground and love the hell out of you,” said Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman in a hot-to-trot e-mail to Discovery shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein while he was in orbit.
“But honestly, love, I want you to totally and thoroughly enjoy your hero’s homecoming,” Shipman wrote in another e-mail to the shuttle’s charismatic commander on Dec. 21, the day before he steered the spacecraft to a landing.
The dozen e-mails – including steamy extraterrestrial conversations conducted while Oefelein was on a 13-day mission in space – were released yesterday by the state attorney’s office in Florida, where Nowak is charged with attacking Shipman.
Nowak discovered the e-mails sometime before her manic mission in early February to confront Shipman over the affair. It was apparently the first time Nowak, a mother of three, learned that she had a challenger for Oefelein’s affection, court documents show.
Officials also released an earlier snail-mail letter from Nowak to Oefelein’s mother, in which the moonbat swoons that her love for Bill was soaring and she planned to leave her husband for him.
Nowak, 43, a flight engineer and rising star with NASA’s space program who won kudos for her work maneuvering the robotic arm of the Discovery shuttle last summer, found the damning e-mails on Oefelein’s home computer.
She had the key to his apartment and the password to his computer, and downloaded the intimate missives, which crushed her dreams of marriage to her space hero.
The e-mails also included Oefelein’s plans to take his new love overseas on a business trip. It was not clear when the stunned Nowak confronted Oefelein with the evidence that clearly indicated his blossoming love for another woman 15 years her junior.
Oefelein met Shipman in 2006 at the Kennedy Space Center while he was still seeing Nowak.
The affair became serious enough that during his space mission, he carried a charm Shipman had given him for good luck.
He even e-mailed her a picture of the object floating in zero gravity.
Shipman replied that she couldn’t make out the photo.
“I don’t see the charm though! pant, pant. It’s like those erotic hidden picture games that they have at the bar . . . only you’re fully clothed in the picture,” she wrote.
“. . . But the thought of you without any clothes is pretty nice ‘sigh.’ ”
In a response, the divorced Oefelein wrote to Shipman from aboard Discovery about how much he missed being with her, and apologized for botching the picture of the charm.
“I’m a boob. Apparently I can be a moron even when you are not physically with me,” he wrote.
“I imagine this doesn’t surprise you anymore, this idiot you decided to like. You must really have me around your finger that I can’t even function without you here and with you here I am slightly smarter than a slug.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should be a road kill scraper-upper. That shouldn’t be too hard. I can scrape things up that don’t move on the road like armadillos, after they’ve been discombobulated by sexy, hot bodies. Just a thought. I need help.”
A day before Discovery landed last December, Shipman wrote to Oefelein, “Will 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.” He didn’t get the e-mail until after he touched down.
When his shuttle flight was over, Shipman e-mailed him, “Lots of love coming your way . . . and kisses and a great big giant hug with my legs around you.”
In another e-mail, sent in January, Shipman wrote Oefelein at his NASA e-mail address, “I love you and I am head-over-heels IN love with you.”
Police statements, along with e-mails between Oefelein and Shipman, confirm for the first time that Oefelein had a romantic relationship with Nowak. It lasted two or three years before he broke it off to date Shipman late last year.
Oefelein has said he considered Nowak to be one of his best friends at NASA.
“We had a relationship but, you know, never really said the word ‘girlfriend,’ ” Oefelein told investigators. “We were somewhat exclusive. Nobody prohibited anything, but I would consider her exclusive for a period of time.”
In an interview with police, Oefelein told detectives he had been dating the brainy Nowak since 2004 but had told her of his new love interest.
He said Nowak “seemed a little disappointed, but she seemed accepting of that,” according to court papers.
“I would [have] never predicted this. She actually wished me a nice weekend knowing Colleen was going to spend it with me,” Oefelein told authorities.
After her arrest, Nowak downplayed her relationship with the handsome shuttle commander, telling investigators that her connection with him was more professional than romantic. But that belied Nowak’s true feelings.
On Feb. 5, after allegedly stalking her love rival for two months, Nowak drove 14 hours straight from Houston to Orlando, Fla. – wearing diapers astronauts use so she wouldn’t have to make bathroom stops – for a showdown with the unsuspecting Shipman as she arrived at the airport.
Nowak, disguised in a wig, sunglasses and a trench coat, followed Shipman to a parking lot and using a ploy for help, cornered Shipman in her car, authorities said.
“Can you help me please?” Nowak asked through the car window. “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?”
But Shipman, suspicious of the stranger’s oddball demeanor, declined.
“No. If you need help, I’ll send someone to you,” Shipman said, according to the arrest report.
The hellbent Nowak convinced Shipman to lower her window slightly, then pepper-sprayed her, police say.
The Air Force captain took evasive action and sped away. Nowak was arrested a short time later.
In her car, police found a BB gun, a steel mallet, latex gloves, a knife, a love letter to Oefelein and Shipman’s home address.
Nowak has been charged with attempted kidnapping and burglary with assault.
She has pleaded not guilty and has been free on bond but must wear an electronic ankle-monitoring device. If found guilty, she could face life in prison.
She’s been relieved of her space flight duties and placed on a 30-day leave of absence that ends tomorrow. It is not known what her fate will be with the space program.
Nowak seemed so certain of her bond with Oefelein that in the undated handwritten note to his mother, the head-in-the-clouds astronaut wrote she was going to divorce her husband of 19 years.
“Bill is absolutely the best person I’ve ever known and I love him more than I knew possible,” she wrote. She even thanked his mom for backing her “especially since my parents are not as supportive right now.”
“It really means a lot to me to have another mom to turn to,” she said, adding, “I am in the process of completing all of the official divorce paperwork.”
Meanwhile, Shipman had stormy times with the charismatic Oefelein and worried about Nowak seeking revenge.
According to a police interview, she said, “You know how these things go . . . I said there’s going to be some crazy lady showing up at my door trying to kill me, and he said, ‘No, no, no, she’s not like that, she’s fine, she’s happy for me.”
Shipman said she was jealous of Nowak, who still stored her bicycle at Oefelein’s apartment.
“I told him that it made me very uncomfortable and it made me want to pull away from this relationship ’cause it made me think that he didn’t quite cut ties maybe,” Shipman said.
And once, in Houston, Oefelein “came home and we had a few drinks, and we were laying in bed and he called me Lisa.”
Nowak’s family has steadfastly stood beside her.
” These alleged events are completely out of character,” a spokesman said.