Astronaut Anne McClain has made history by being accused of committing the first-ever crime in space.
The decorated NASA cosmonaut, who has been involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with her estranged wife and former Air Force intelligence officer, Summer Worden, decided to take part in a few illegal activities while up in space aboard the International Space Station.
According to several media outlets, during a six-month mission miles away from planet Earth, McClain was able to access her spouse’s personal information and stole her identity and accessed her bank account without her permission.
The women have been going back and forth in court in a bitter divorce since 2018. Things took an even nastier turn over Worden’s 6-year-old son, whom McClain was helping to raise.
It has been confirmed that Worden never agreed to let McClain adopt the boy, who was barely one year old when the ladies met and became a family in 2014.
Worden explained that she conceived the child via in vitro fertilization and carried by a surrogate.
McClain, who was determined to be recognized as a mother to the little boy, decided to drag Worden to court in 2018 to get shared parenting rights.
Court documents showed that McClain accused Worden of having a bad temper and wasting money. McClain said she wanted to have joint custody of the child because she has bee “there for his first steps and first words” and based on the fact that they had “a very healthy and deep parental relationship.”
The accusation pushed Worden to file for divorce. Worden also based her decision to leave the marriage after McClain defied her wishes and posted pictures of her son on social media.
Talking about her only child, Worden said this: “I protect my son with everything I have. That is my No. 1 priority, but I didn’t sense at that time that she was anybody that I needed to protect him against. I trusted her.”
Worden is now going after McClain for accessing her bank account while she was at the space station.
Worden said that her bank “did give evidence to my attorneys that she did access my bank accounts. I was shocked and appalled at the audacity by her to think that she could get away with that, and I was very disheartened that I couldn’t keep anything private.”
McClain has denied the claims. During an under-oath interview with NASA’s inspector general, McClain explained that she visited the bank account from space to make sure that Worden had enough funds to pay the bills.
McClain explained that the password she used is the one she had for many months.
NASA officials stated that they were not aware of the incident and went on to praise McClain: “Lt Col. Anne McClain has an accomplished military career, flew combat missions in Iraq and is one of NASA’s top astronauts. She did a great job on her most recent NASA mission aboard the International Space Station. Like with all NASA employees, NASA does not comment on personal or personnel matters.”
McClain made headlines earlier this year after it was revealed that she would not take part in NASA’s first all-female spacewalk because they could not find a spacesuit in her size.
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