Just as the groundswell of gossip-mongering, prurience and plain old media exploitation reached its histrionic crescendo surrounding astronaut Lisa Nowak’s tragic fall-from-grace, along came the untimely (inevitable?) death of Anna Nicole Smith, a woman truly famous for doing absolutely nothing.

For the families of all involved in what appeared to be an ill-fated romance among NASA’s astronaut corps it can only be a relief that Smith, a beauty of Amazonian proportions who married well, widowed ugly and parlayed the ensuing media circus into reality-TV stardom shuffled off this mortal coil just in time for the 5 o’clock news Thursday evening. Talk about timing! People always dissed Smith for her “dumb blond” persona, but it appears that, even in death, she could play the press. In many ways Smith was heir to Marilyn Monroe’s legacy or–for those too young to remember–Smith was Jessica Simpson “dumb” before Simpson’s father packaged it for MTV.

For someone like Smith, the relentless, 24/7 coverage of her self-created trials and trevails was the business that she was in. She was truly a late-20th Century media creation, a “celebrity” custom-built for red carpet openings, boozy breakdowns and lamentable trysts in romantic locales, bringing Andy Warhol’s “famous for 15-minutes” maxim to its obvious, ignorant conclusion.

Then there’s Nowak, who prior to Monday’s very public breakdown, arrest and arraignment, lived her life like the rest of the nation’s astronaut corps in a kind of noble obscurity, trotted out for photo ops and interviews when it came time for NASA to promote visibility for its ongoing manned space program, specifically last July’s mission to the International Space Station.

A quick Google search this morning captured about 2.5 million references for Anna Nicole Smith, while Nowak came in with a paltry 890,000. That said, a bulk of the Nowak references, almost 50 percent of the search pages, referenced the awful events of the last five days of her life. In fact, it’s safe to say that the media has printed more column inches in the last four days on Nowak’s personal tragedy than it did over the last year on the fact that she risked her life as a member of the STS-121 space shuttle Discovery crew.

It’s nice to know where the media’s priorities lie. So you can imagine my surprise last night when I saw People magazine’s latest issue at the local pharmacy with Nowak, her alleged intended victim and her alleged paramour plastered on the cover. On the other hand, just imagine how surprised People’s editor’s were today, realizing that when they put the issue to bed Wednesday, in less than 24 hours, a “real celebrity” would do something really worthy of a cover story? Tragic, really.