In a Fall Homecoming, No Hints of Distress

Last fall, fresh from her trip into space, astronaut Lisa Nowak returned to Maryland to visit each of her old schools, to sign autographs, share the joys of freeze-dried food and recount 13 days in the weightless void.

She was soon to split with her husband and was swiftly descending, police say, into a romantic obsession with a fellow astronaut that would lead her 950 sleepless miles to a surreal confrontation with another woman in an airport parking lot. Nowak has been charged with attempted murder; her attorney says she was merely trying to talk with the woman, an Air Force captain.

But no such troubles were apparent a few months ago, when hundreds of schoolchildren, parents and old classmates lined up to hear the astronaut from Rockville talk of her Independence Day voyage on the shuttle.

"She was great with the kids," recalled Lisa Cirillo, a parent at Luxmanor Elementary School in Rockville who attended an October assembly held in Nowak's honor. "We thought it was amazingly cool that someone from our school had gone up in space."

Andrea Rose of Garrett Park, Nowak's sister, sent out photographs by e-mail yesterday that portray Nowak "as the mother, sister, daughter, wife and friend who her family knows her to be."

There's a picture of Nowak and her husband, Rich, holding their twin daughters at the girls' 2002 baptism; of Nowak, in uniform, cradling her baby niece in Annapolis at a 2003 memorial service for William McCool, who had died aboard the shuttle Columbia; and of a red-cheeked Nowak with her younger sisters, both lawyers, on the joyous July evening after her spaceflight returned safely to Earth.

Nowak, a Navy captain, was born Lisa Marie Caputo into a family of Italian heritage. She told NASA biographers she had first thought of being an astronaut while watching the first moon landing on television at age 5.

Bright, driven and quietly confident, she invited her entire kindergarten class to celebrate a birthday, remembered Bobby Patton, a childhood friend. Patton remembered Nowak -- a young woman destined for a career dominated by men -- as "much less intimidating than other girls. . . . She seemed to get along with the boys."

Tracy Birnbaum of Potomac grew up on the same block as the Caputos and remembers Nowak as a cerebral babysitter. "She's brilliant; the whole family is brilliant," Birnbaum said, recalling how Nowak would appear at the door with a stack of books.

Nowak breezed through Luxmanor Elementary, Tilden Middle School and Charles W. Woodward High School, which has closed.

Last summer, Jane Caputo, Nowak's mother, asked someone at Luxmanor Elementary for an owl, the school mascot, for Nowak to take into space. She also contacted Walter Johnson High School, which had inherited Woodward's students.

Greg Dunston, Nowak's old track coach, stopped by the Caputo home with a Woodward banner for the flight. He doesn't know if it went up on Discovery.