Hot astronaut love revealed

"I asked him, 'Are you sure that she's OK with this? Because you know how these things go?' and I said, 'Is there gonna be some crazy lady showing up at my door trying to kill me?' And he said, 'No, no, no, she's not like that. She's fine with it. She's happy for me.'"

To quote John McLaughlin: Wrong!

ABC News says the the man in the astronaut love triangle that captured the nation's (ok, my) imagination, Bill Oefelein, was the ultimate NASA playa, carrying on with two women at once, with hilarious consequences. Among the hilarity, the fact that he called the victim in all of this, Capt. Colleen Shipman, by the name of the other one, Capt. Lisa Nowak. This guy gets more play than Capt. Kirk.

You can also read what are billed as "steamy" e-mail exchanges between Oefelein and the saner of his two girlfriends. Sure, there's a little steam ("[My] first urge will be to rip your clothes off, throw you on the ground and love the hell out of you."), but mostly the e-mails are sweet and I almost feel guilty reading them.

Some of them are even really funny, like when Oefelein says he hopes Shipman can make a European trip with him, because "I need my beautiful Irish girl to keep the evil, ugly bread canister ladies away from me."

Funny, but not really poetic. What we need to do is send a poet or artist into space, so they can capture the awesome majesty of looking down on the earth from above, without being distracted by the pressures of dating two women at once, one of whom is married and has lost touch with reality.