Not wanting to see Congress slash its budget, a top NASA honcho attempted to explain yesterday how Lisa Nowak, the diaper-wearing, man-loving, lady-stalking astronaut, could have ever joined the space cadets.

“Clearly she is in major trouble, and clearly we failed as an institution to recognize that she was very troubled,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told Sen. Byron L. Dorgan during a budget hearing. He added that NASA is throughly reviewing psychological screening assessments of astronauts.

Does anyone else feel like NASA is taking too much responsibility here? Isn’t it just a fact of life that people with mental illness walk among us?