The moment Lisa Nowak became a household name should have been in the summer of 2006, when she blasted into space aboard a NASA shuttle.

It was the culmination of decades of discipline and devotion to her passion for the solar system - a 12-day mission she had spent most of her adult life working toward.

Instead, her name became infamous a year later, after a decision driven by raw, deeply personal emotion sent her spectacularly crashing back to Earth.

In February 2007, Nowak drove 900 miles from Houston, home of NASA mission control, to Orlando to confront Colleen Shipman, an Air Force captain who was dating Nowak's ex-boyfriend, fellow astronaut William 'Bill' Oefelein.

According to police, she packed her car for the 14-hour journey with what investigators described as tactical items for an attack: a trench coat, black wig, pepper spray, a BB gun, rope, trash bags and an eight-inch knife.

But it was one detail more than any other that transfixed the public: Police reports claimed Nowak was wearing a space diaper so she would not have to stop for bathroom breaks during the drive.

Disguised in the wig and trench coat, Nowak approached Shipman's car in the parking garage of Orlando International Airport. She banged on the window and asked for a ride. When Shipman lowered it, Nowak sprayed her with pepper spray and tried to get inside the vehicle.

Shipman managed to escape and call 911 - she was unhurt in the attack, but later testified that it was 'the most traumatic experience of my entire life.' Nowak was later arrested and charged with attempted murder, setting off one of the most jaw-dropping downfalls in modern American science history.

Nowak (pictured) was a decorated astronaut before she violently confronted her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend 

Nowak (right) orbited the earth with a seven-member crew (pictured) aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 2006

Nowak's stunning capitulation also became the inspiration for Natalie Portman's character in the 2019 film Lucy in the Sky.

Now, almost 20 years later, the former trailblazing astronaut lives quietly, far from the headlines that once defined her.

She works in the private science sector, lives outside Houston, sees her adult children from time to time and occasionally goes on dates. Interview requests have been politely declined.

That low-profile existence is a world away from the mid-2000s, when Nowak was one of NASA's most visible figures. 

'Even 18 years later, it's humiliating,' a friend who now filters interview requests on her behalf told the Daily Mail. 'After everything she achieved, she's still known as the astronaut who wore a diaper.'