AEROSPACERS GONE WILD

Television viewers are now being treated to a new soap opera of the JOHN'S OTHER WIFE genre. The new soap, AEROSPACERS GONE WILD, has gotten off to a very strong start. For all you soap opera lovers, here is a review of the new show.

THE CHARACTERS: Lisa Nowak, 43, a NASA astronaut who flew on the Discovey last July. Lisa is a U.S. Navy captain, a rank equivalent to a "full chicken" colonel in the U.S. Army. Lisa, a 1985 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is the recipient of bachelor and master's degrees in aerospace engineering. She joined NASA in 1996. Lisa, who is separated from her husband, is the mother of three children.

William Oefelein. 41, a NASA astronaut who flew on the Discovery last December. A stud, known to his friends as Billy-O, he is a commander in the U.S. Navy. He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in aviation systems. He joined NASA in 1998. Billy-O is the divorced father of two children.

Colleen Shipman, 30, a U.S. Air Force captain who is an engineer with a launch support unit for the air force's national security launches at Kennedy Space Center, the same site where NASA's space shuttles are launched. Colleen was in the ROTC at Penn State and holds degrees in chemical engineering and in German. In 2002, she was commissioned a lieutenant in the air force. Colleen does not work with the space agency's programs. Colleen is single.

Donald Lykkebak, a Florida lawyer, who specializes in keeping a poker face while telling bald-faced lies. Orlando police detective William Becton. Additional characters include other astronauts and NASA administrators, friends and family of Lisa, Billy-O and Colleen, and other Florida law enforcement officials.

THE PLOT: AEROSPACERS GONE WILD is the story of a passionate love triangle between two middle aged astronauts and a younger woman. Astronaut Billy-O is divorced by his wife of 17 years. He devlops a close relationship with fellow astronaut Lisa as they train together for flight in space. Lisa falls deeply in love with Billy-O and theirs becomes an intimate relationship. Lisa separates from her husband of 19 years.

While at the Kennedy Space Center, Billy-O meets the younger Colleen. Billy-O and Colleen become lovers. Lisa is devastated when she learns of their relationship. Lisa finds out that Colleen is staying with Billy-O in Houston over the weekend. A dumped Lisa is determined to end the affair of her former lover with Colleen. Lisa plots an elaborate scheme designed to doom the romance between her rival and Billy-O.

LAST WEEK'S EPISODE: Using her contacts at NASA, Lisa finds out the airline flight schedule for Colleen's return to Florida. Lisa withdraws a large amount of cash with which she purchases a black wig, a hooded trenchcoat, a pellet handgun, a four inch folding knife, pepper spray, a steel mallet, four feet of plastic tubing, six black latex gloves, and some garbage bags, making sure not to pay for anything with her credit card.

Her cheating heart broken, Lisa hops in her car and drives 969 miles from Houston to Orlando. To get to the airport ahead of Colleen, she wears an adult diaper so she would not have to stop to pee. She stops only for gas and pays for the fuel in cash. She checks into a hotel near the Orlando airport, wearing the wig, registering under a false name with a false address, and paying for the room in cash. Lisa, still wearing the diaper and wig, puts on the trench coat and drives to and parks at the airport to await the arrival of Colleen.

Colleen arrives in Orlando, but discovers that her baggage was not on her flight. She waited in the airport for two hours until her baggage arrived. As she heads to her car, an alarmed Colleen notices a dark haired woman following her. She hurries to her car, gets in, and immediately locks all the doors. The dark haired woman starts pounding on the driver's side window screaming that she needed help. Colleen cracks the window slightly and Lisa spritzes her with the pepper spray.

Colleen manages to drive as far as the parking lot toll booth where she reports the assault. The police arrive in time to see Lisa trying to discard a garbage bag containing the purchased goodies, which they retrieve from a trash container. Colleen identifies Lisa who is then arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping, among other charges. After spending the night in jail she appeared in court and was granted release on $15,000 bail. While she was in a bail bond office, Lisa was rearrested on a newly filed charge of attempted first degree murder.

Detective Becton prepared the affidavit for the murder charge. "The facts that Mrs. Nowak drove approximately 900 miles, urinated in diapers so that she did not need to stop, stayed at a hotel where she paid in cash and used a false name and address to register, stealthily followed the victim, while in disguise, and possessed multiple deadly weapons at the time she confronted the victim, as well as spraying the victim with a substance meant to disable a person, create a well-founded fear and give this investigator probable cause to believe that Mrs. Nowak intended to murder Ms. Shipman."

At the following court hearing Donald Lykkebak, Lisa's lawyer, told the judge that this case was not what it appeared to be. Maintaining a poker face, he told the court, "What we have here is a desperate woman wanting to talk to the other woman." This time Lisa was released on $25,000 bail, fitted with a GPS ankle bracelet, and escorted back to Houston on a commercial flight by another astronaut, one of two who had flown to Orlando to be at her side. Uon her return, NASA placed Lisa on 30 days leave. Meanwhile, Billy-O flies to Florida to be at Colleen's side.

COMING EPISODES: Will a spaced out Lisa be thrown out of the space program? Will Colleen testify against Lisa or will she decide not to cooperate with the prosecution? Will that murder charge hold up? Will Lykkebak's argument of Lisa only wanting to talk to Colleen fly? Will she get probation, go to prison, or will a jury find that this astronaut merely flew over the cuckoo's nest? Will the Navy courtmartial Lisa for the unbecoming conduct of adultery? Will Billy-O marry Colleen, or will he dump her for a still younger babe? Soap lovers, stay tuned to AEROSPACERS GONE WILD with new adult diaper commercials claiming that "You can depend on Depend to keep you dry for at least 900 miles."