With Discipline Honed by Training, Police Say, Astronaut Set Out to Kill

But before she could pull away, Nowak slapped at the window. Then she pulled at the locked door.

"Can you help me please?" Nowak told her, according to the affidavit. "My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up, and he is not here. I've been traveling and it's late. Can you give me a ride to the parking office?"

Shipman said she'd send someone to help. Nowak asked to use Shipman's cellphone. Shipman told her the battery was dead. Nowak said she could not hear Shipman through the window, then began to cry.

Shipman opened her window two inches. Nowak sprayed something, later determined to be pepper spray, into the opened window, aiming at Shipman's face. Shipman drove away, her eyes burning, and sought help, according to police.

Police and prosecutors say the evidence suggests that Nowak might have wanted to get into Shipman's car and kill her, possibly at Shipman's house.

Citing other details -- the handwritten list, an assumed name -- prosecutor Amanda Cowan likened Nowak's planning for the trip to the kind of preparations astronauts make as they ready for space.

"She had a mission that she was very determined to carry out," she said.

Last summer, Nowak was literally on top of the world, one of the very few chosen to fly on the space shuttle to the international space station. She flew on Discovery in July as a mission specialist and operated one of the space station's robotic arms, a job that requires intensive training.

"It was such a high to see her get on the shuttle," said Dennis Alloy of Vienna, a childhood friend who watched it lift off. "It's such a shame."

Nowak performed "extremely well" on that first mission, said David Mould, a NASA spokesman. She was scheduled to be a capsule communications officer for the next shuttle flight in March, to serve as the conduit between Houston's Mission Control and the astronauts.

As of Tuesday, Nowak was off NASA's prestigious "flight status" list and was on a 30-day leave.

"We are deeply saddened by this tragic event," said Michael L. Coats, director of Johnson Space Center. "The charges against Lisa Nowak are serious ones that must be decided by the judicial system."