Quite predictably, my inbox was blowing up this morning and the news of a bizarre love triangle at the workplace was the only thing people wanted to talk about. It was the first item at our weekly office meet-up (under the heading “safety”). At my workplace safety always comes first. So THIS is what they mean by a “water cooler topic”:

This is the story everyone’s talking about at the water cooler today. (Fortunately, I sit right next to the water cooler.) NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak has been charged with attempted murder of another astronaut, who was in a astronaut love triangle with another astronaut. She also had on diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop on the drive. Okay, so attempted murder and kidnapping aren’t cool, but if they have to happen, I’m pretty happy that astronauts are involved. [Link]

First of all, if I was a rockstar I would totally name my band “astronaut love triangle.” It’s so edgy. If you click on my first link it will lead you to the arrest report which provides details about the steel mallet, rubber tubing, knife, pepper spray, large trash bags, wigs, and trench coat involved. I will spare you re-hashing the details that have been replayed on the news all day. This far into my post I am SURE you are all wondering “where is the desi angle?” Stay with me a moment.

Earlier this week Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams (see previous posts 1,2,3) set the spacewalking record for a woman. This is an amazing achievement that took many long hours of hard work in a dangerous environment!:

U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams has now spent more time in space [outside of a vehicle] than any other woman, setting the record on Sunday.

She and a crew mate upgraded the international space station’s cooling system.

Williams broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours when she and Michael Lopez-Alegria completed the second of what could be a precedent-setting three spacewalks in nine days. The new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes. [Link]

So what do these two seemingly unrelated news stories have in common besides the fact that they both involve astronauts? Three words: Maximum Absorption Garment (MAG).

The idiot civilian journalists in the mainstream press keep using the term “diaper.” It is NOT a diaper. It is, like the name says, a MAG. In both cases the MAG proved to be, what we in the industry like to refer to as, “mission enabling.” You see, there is no way that Nowak could have driven the 1000 miles from Houston to Orlando fast enough to rendezvous with her victim’s inbound flight…unless she was able to skip the bathroom breaks along the way. Likewise, there is no way Sunita Williams could have worked on assembling the International Space Station all day (while sipping Tang no doubt) unless she was wearing a MAG while doing it. The MAG helped her set the spacewalking record, which in turn makes us all proud to be Indian Americans.

And now for a little confession. Remember back in the first year of our operations here at SM when I was pumping out 3 blog posts a day and often more than a dozen a week? Yeah, you know what I’m saying. Just how do you think I was able to blog for eight straight hours?

Here is to the MAG and the wonders of NASA technology. I’m a believer.