The Search for the Perfect Astronaut

NASA announced last week plans to review its pyschological screening for astronauts in the wake of Astronaut Lisa Nowak's arrest for attempted murder. You can hardly blame NASA. It was the right move. NASA is doing its best to insure the astronaut selection process and their ongoing assessment is stable. However, NASA is also keenly aware of the importance of public perception in light of federal funding. The last thing the public, Congress and NASA wants is an unstable astronaut orbiting the earth.

By now everyone has heard Nowak's story. She was charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping and three other crimes related to what police are calling a love triangle involving another astronaut.

Former astronaut Homer Hickam wrote a piece for the L.A. Times last week in
which he opened the usually tightened window on the astronaut world, noting that
while Nowak's conduct is extreme, previous situations have resulted in quiet
disimissals or resignations:

As a former NASA astronaut training manager responsible for crew training for shuttle missions, I was not entirely surprised by the initial reports of the sad, bizarre case of Lisa Marie Nowak. This isn't the first case of astronauts having difficulties in their personal lives. Usually, the straying astronaut simply resigns or retires, and everything is hushed up. But being charged with assault, attempted kidnapping and attempted
murder is far greater than anything I ever observed or imagined could occur. Perhaps this tragedy will bring some of the agency's long-ignored problems into the open.

First is the tremendous and unnecessary pressures brought to bear on the
members of NASA's cloistered astronaut office. This is the division at the
Johnson Space Center in Houston where the astronauts work. It is the
office that assigns each astronaut his or her job. Since most astronauts are
waiting to be put on a mission, these jobs -- such as working on the shuttle
hydraulic system or sitting in on meetings about a new science payload --
are important, but they're usually no more difficult than the ones
accomplished routinely by other NASA engineers and scientists. The
difference is the astronauts come under constant scrutiny by their
management to determine who will fly and who will not. Some never get
assigned to a space mission, yet they are called astronauts as long as they
work for NASA.

No one can fault NASA for what happened. And I believe the agency responded as well as it could given circumstances beyond its control. Situations like this should prompt any agency, company, or organization to review its policies and practices. However, in a fallen world the search for the perfect astronaut will be as unproductive as the search for the perfect pastor, plumber, cardiologist or school teacher. The perfect person does not exist this side of eternity.

The follow up questions are endless: Did we miss something in her initial screening? Is this bizarre behavior the result of time she spent in space aboard the space shuttle Discovery in July? Were there any warning signs we missed? You get the idea.

Newsflash: Astronaut Nowak is human. And according to Scripture (Isa. 53:6; Romans 3:23; 5:12-21; 7:14, etc.) ALL of us are flawed, imperfect, depraved, irregular and sinful. In his book, "Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them," pastor John Ortberg writes: Every one of us pretends to be healthier and kinder than we really are; we all engage in what might be called "depravity management."

Ortberg continues: From the time of Adam in the Garden of Eden, sin and hiding have been as inevitable as death and taxes. Some people are pretty good at hiding. But the weirdness is still there. Get close enough to anyone, and you will see it. Everybody's normal till you get to know them.

Unfortunately, many today believe they can find the perfect astronaut, professional athlete, CEO, etc. A casual reading of the Sunday newspaper over the last year would reveal the impossibility of such a search. Perhaps that's part of the cultural problem when stuff like this happens and grabs the headlines. For example: Robin Williams stumbles with his sobriety; Anna Nicole dies a mysterious death; the Enron leadership is indicted and convicted; nine NFL players for the Cinncinati Bengals are arrested and we act as though this shouldn't happen. People with a biblical worldview are not suprised by any of this. We may be disappointed, saddened and heart broken, but we know it always comes back to sin. However, it doesn't leave us without hope or resignation that things will never change.

If anything, sin should cause the people of God to grieve, cry out, seek forgiveness, grant forgiveness to those who mess up, and pray for those who struggle to experience God's grace because we have been the undeserving recepients of the same grace many times before. And we will again. Lisa Nowak needs our prayers, as well as the male astronaut and the victim who was attacked in Orlando. NASA needs our prayers for wisdom. But the last thing we need is to respond as though this is totally foreign to us. Human failings and shortcomings serve as reminders of the biblical story and the need for something, for someone far greater than any of us. It reminds us of the need for a perfect, infallible, sinless Savior, Jesus Christ. He is indeed the only hope we have and what a hope!

P.S. The picture above from the movie, "Space Cowboys" about a group of aged, flawed astronauts is my attempt to humorously remind us that no one is perfect!