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Save the Astronaut Program From This Scandal, Opie
for release 02-08-07
Washington DC
I remember when Ron Howard was the adorable little Tom Sawyer-esqe character named Opie on the Andy Griffith Show. Those were the days when we had astronauts like the squeaky-clean John Glenn and the Heroic Neil Armstrong. They could do no wrong.
Here's the deal. Astronauts represent even more of a priesthood in our culture than do televangelists. When one falls from grace in some way, like Jimmy Swaggart or Lisa Marie Nowak, it is both a shock and a popular delight. We love to see the fall of those on high.
As anyone with a television knows, astronaut Nowak strapped on a diaper and drove from Houston to Florida with a can of pepper-spay and a BB gun to shoot off the legs of her rival. Her rival it seems had stolen her dreams by screwing the pilot she fancied.
I don't know what Nowak thought she was going to do with the BB gun, I think it is more likely that she was intending to bitch slap Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman with the wet diaper.
It's a story no writer could invent. Since they don't make 'made for TV' movies anymore, I think we might have to send this script to Ron Howard. It ranks right up there with the Amy Fischer trilogy and the Farrah Fawcett classic The Burning Bed, not to mention the Bobbit Story and Apollo 13. You know, the genre of gripping, real-life drama.
There's historical fact on which to hang a script, Ron. Nowak, a married Navy commander and astronaut, was apparently involved with Bill Oefelein, who piloted the Discovery shuttle mission on which she flew last July. This means that Conceivably they could have had the First Orbital Sex (FOS). Is nothing sacred? I'm picturing a scene where a used condom is added to the space debris and then slaps onto a Chinese satellite. Do condoms even work in space? See what I mean, Ron? There's Story here.
You can just see the sexual tension as they head for the launch, then the eruption of passion when the thrusters cut in, their eyes meeting while their faces are distorted by G-force. Then the panoramic petting scene when they take a space walk together. Doing it in a NASA spacesuit must be even kinkier than scuba gear. C'mon Ron, this could be bigger than Apollo 13. It could give your career the edge it needs to really get you out of Mayberry for good. The sex scenes would be spectacular. Two lusty astronauts fucking in weightless slow motion adulterous abandon in the padded cabin of the Shuttle with Mother Earth spinning past the porthole. It would be breathtaking.
Then comes the gritty section. Wracked by post-orbital depression, Lisa Marie dons her NASA issued diaper and makes the grueling 900 mile drive from Texas to Florida to confront the other woman. Now we have the Kung Fu scene where both highly trained fem-ninja astronauts square off in a mortal battle for the man they love. It's classic, Ron, Shakespearean. It's got everything, passion, lust, jealosy, extremity, love triangles, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, high technology. Please, Ron, don't let Nancy Grace have the last word on this story.
Ron, The Poet's Eye sees that this is really a redemption story. And we all know that America loves a redemption story. They'll invent some new malady called something like Post-coital Astronautical Stress Syndrome and treat Nowak with some LaLa drug and three weeks of counseling and declare her cured. Happy Ending. Oh well, back to Mayberry.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
---Oscar Wilde
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