Katie Couric's Notebook: Lisa Nowak
Video: Most of this week, the bizarre story of astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak has contributed to a lot of late night punchlines.
Headline writers have had a field day describing her as an "astro-nut," or "space oddity." There have been jokes about diapers and "Tang."
But there is clearly more to this - a broken marriage, a stressful job, unnamed troubles that were causing Lisa Nowak personal turmoil. Here was a woman who had literally soared to amazing heights, only to return to earth with a crash. But why? What caused it? Could it have been prevented?
Not to be a softy, but while everyone jokes, let's remember that this is a humiliating fall from grace for one woman -- and three children are involved.
As the director of the Johnson Space Center told the New York Times yesterday: "Like everyone, astronauts are human."
That humanity is what makes them so heroic.
And, in Lisa Nowak's case...so tragic.
That's a page from my notebook.