Of course, we all love astronauts but William Oefelein seems to have been peculiarly lucky in this regard. His first marriage has broken up and, according to his former mother-in-law (former mother-in-laws often prove to be remarkably willing sources in these unfortunate circumstances), he has already met Colleen Shipman's parents.

It's sweet really. Oefelein is tanned and ruggedly handsome and, presumably, pretty dashing. He is a pilot and graduated from the Top Gun flight school - in real life, as my nephew would say.

Colleen Shipman is a blonde, blue-eyed American beauty.

And then there is the dark side. That would be Lisa Nowak, brunette motherof-three and nicknamed 'Robo-chick' by her colleagues on the shuttle. She operated the arm of a robot as part of her job on the shuttle when she spent 13 days on it last July.

There are 415 men who have been in space, and just 45 women. It is easy to imagine how motivated and impressive Nowak must have been to get selected. How she must have struggled, as all astronauts do, to get through the assessments and the stress tests and the medicals and the psychological profiling. According to the potted biography she wrote herself, she also found time for running, playing the piano and collecting African violets.

And now, in a Florida courtroom, Nowak, this high-achieving girl's-own heroine, has been described by her own lawyer as "a desperate woman". As those words were spoken, a million television scriptwriters reached for their keyboards. As plots go, it doesn't get much better than this. How about Jennifer Connelly as Captain Lisa Nowak and whichever Olsen twin is not in hospital as Captain Colleen Shipman?

In a pathetic attempt to rescue his profession from yet another embarrassment, a Nasa psychiatrist has suggested that it was Nowak's spectacular career success that contributed to what he lovingly described as "her personal malfunction".

When arrested, she was found to be in possession of a pen-knife, an airgun, a mallet, pepper spray and a lot of rubbish bags. Whatever she was going to do, she was going to tidy up afterwards.

Like a good girl.

In the event Nowak, who presumably has had weapons training, used only the pepper spray against Colleen Shipman.

In her car, she had copies of emails exchanged between Colleen Shipman and William Oefelein, and a love letter from herself to William Oefelein. In other words, she had brought all the evidence of both love affairs with her. It was the gun that she left at home.

This is not to say that Nowak was not obsessed and irrational. To the delight of millions, she drove the 1,000 miles from her home in Houston, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, in pursuit of Colleen Shipman wearing a nappy so that she would not have to make what Americans call 'rest stops' along the way.

Astronauts wear nappies during take off and landing. So, if nothing else, the nappy does seem to imply a strong sense of mission.

Lisa Nowak did not prove much cop as a killer. The initial charges against her were for stalking - she wore a trench coat when approaching Colleen Shipman, and a wig. To the disgust of little girls everywhere, feet of clay have been peeping out from under her flight suit for some time. Her own marriage of 19 years, to a Nasa flight controller, had ended just weeks before she set off after Colleen Shipman. A neighbour had heard the sound of smashing crockery coming from the family home.

And now, we can hear the sound of posters being ripped off bedroom walls all over the US, as Captain Nowak leaves the hall of fame. Or, at least, moves to another section of it.