In a Fall Homecoming, No Hints of Distress

Dunston said the young sprinter was hardly the supreme physical specimen one might expect of a future astronaut.

"She wasn't real tall, and she was a little stocky," he recalled. "But it was amazing how quick she could be. One of her greatest assets was how hard she would work."

Nowak took calculus and physics and finished at the top of her class. She entered the U.S. Naval Academy, part of the sixth class to admit women, and started a chapter of her life that would put her mostly in the company of men.

She graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1985. Nowak took a class flag into space, and she returned to the school at Thanksgiving to sign autographs at a football game.

Matthew Schatzle, a class officer, said of Nowak, "It takes folks who are smart like her to help the rest of us, who aren't so smart."

Nowak followed an elite path into military aviation, attending Electronic Warfare School in Florida and completing postgraduate degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in Annapolis. She then was invited to attend the prestigious U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent Naval Air Station in St. Mary's County, where she flew as a test pilot in the mid-1990s.

At a time when there was hostility in some Navy circles toward female fliers, Nowak quickly earned the respect of male aviators, said a retired Navy officer who knew Nowak at Patuxent River and spoke on the condition that he not be identified because of the allegations against her.

"She certainly had the credentials and drive and skill sets," he said. "I don't think anyone was surprised that she made it, or about anything that happened to her, until today."

Staff writer Steve Vogel contributed to this report.