Latest / Made of Stars / Trina Ray from NASA's JPL

Transcript

Trina Ray from NASA's JPL · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: We're made of stars, made them stars, made sizes. When
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Speaker 3: made us stars, you could be from high they would
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Speaker 3: New Mexicomus where all stars?
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Speaker 4: When we are made of stars. I'm Wes Carol, joined
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Speaker 4: by my good friend doctor Sean's, an executive director at
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Speaker 4: Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 5: Heyshan, Hey, wescot to be here today. It's an exciting day.
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Speaker 4: Our guest is Trina Ray, formerly from NASA's JPL her
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Speaker 4: career spans Voyager, Cassini Europa Clipper. Kind of an underachiever,
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Speaker 4: not a whole lot of stuff that she's worked on there. Trina,
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Speaker 4: welcome to the show.
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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much. Happy to be here today.
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Speaker 4: We're gonna get to a lot of technical stuff. I'm
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Speaker 4: gonna hand that off to Sean in just a couple
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Speaker 4: of minutes, but I want to first talk about the
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Speaker 4: fact that you, I guess just got back from another
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Speaker 4: solar eclipse. This is like a regular thing for you,
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Speaker 4: isn't it.
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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, Yes, I just got back from my Orca, Spain,
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Speaker 2: where it was a beautiful solar eclipse from high series,
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Speaker 2: but then it was a sunset eclipse and the clouds
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Speaker 2: made just a beautiful sunset, and so as a crescent
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Speaker 2: sun set into the ocean, that is going to be
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Speaker 2: a picture that is indelible in my brain for a
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Speaker 2: long time.
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Speaker 5: And this is my.
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Speaker 2: Sixth solar clips onto China, Easter Islands, Mexico Action nineteen
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Speaker 2: ninety one was my first one. Oregon was at one,
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Speaker 2: and now Majorca. I'm lucky enough to be an astronomy
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Speaker 2: guide on an astronomical school company Serious Travel SI r
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Speaker 2: I U S like the Star, and they continue to
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Speaker 2: hire me to be one of their guides. So a
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Speaker 2: real blessing to be able to go to so many.
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Speaker 4: That sounds like a good gig. Sean and I talk
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Speaker 4: a lot about the fact that things like eclipses or comets,
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Speaker 4: things that are sort of this gateway thing to get
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Speaker 4: people talking and get people interested in astronomy and it's
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Speaker 4: such a valuable tool that can be utilized for people
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Speaker 4: that are trying to draw people in.
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Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, Trina talk about what's the most thing about
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Speaker 5: seeing a total solar eclipse and actually being in that
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Speaker 5: path of totality one hundred percent.
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Speaker 2: Con So, a lot of people think, oh, oh, I
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Speaker 2: saw on eclipse and it was ninety and I got
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Speaker 2: ninety percent of the experience. That is completely wrong. Totality
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Speaker 2: is uh is an entire experience of its own. And
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Speaker 2: what I often tell people is there are very few
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Speaker 2: things in the in the world, in science and in
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Speaker 2: just as being a human, that are so visceral as
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Speaker 2: a total solar eclipse. As you get closer to totality, the
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Speaker 2: temperature changes, shadows get sharper and sharper. Normally, shadows are
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Speaker 2: very blurry here on the Earth, and our brains are
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Speaker 2: used to that. The sun is a disc on the sky,
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Speaker 2: and so when the sunlight comes down and hits something
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Speaker 2: and makes a shadow, there's a whole bunch of sort
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Speaker 2: of shadows that are overlaying each other, and so what
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Speaker 2: you get is very blurry shadows. But as you get
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Speaker 2: closer and closer to totality, you get this the sharp shadows,
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Speaker 2: and it really has a bit of an eerie feel
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Speaker 2: to it. And your brain, which is used to for
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Speaker 2: your whole life because it's understood shadows, and so your
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Speaker 2: brain says something is wrong with the world, and there's anxiety.
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Speaker 2: But your brain also knows that the total cower clips
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Speaker 2: and so that anxiety gets translated into excitement. And I'll
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Speaker 2: tell you it is one hundred percent. Somebody around you
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Speaker 2: is going to burst into tears they are so moved
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Speaker 2: by the experience. Everybody's shouts. It is. It is a
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Speaker 2: purely visceral experience to be in totality and then to
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Speaker 2: look up at the sun and see the corona and
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Speaker 2: and and it's just it's it's it's an incredible experience.
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Speaker 2: I so highly recommend that every single person to dance
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Speaker 2: see at least one time in their life.
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Speaker 5: Yeah. I agree. I was one of those people that
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Speaker 5: you just described. I was one of those people that say, well,
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Speaker 5: you know, I've seen a ninety five percent or something
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Speaker 5: on that order. I guess maybe sometime in my life
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Speaker 5: I will try to get in totality. And then the
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Speaker 5: twenty seventeen eclipse happened here in the US and I
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Speaker 5: was out in Wyoming and I got in the path
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Speaker 5: of that one, and just what you're saying is true.
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Speaker 5: It is such a completely different experience to be in totality.
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Speaker 5: It is so remarkably different than even on almost total
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Speaker 5: solar eclipse. And I had all those same sensations that
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Speaker 5: you were describing. I felt like, well, I knew what
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Speaker 5: time everything was going to happen. I have a reasonably
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Speaker 5: good scientific understanding understanding of all the sequencing of things.
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Speaker 5: But yet when I was standing there in the field,
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Speaker 5: watched it get dark, and felt the changes in temperature,
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Speaker 5: and saw that thing in the sky that is just
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Speaker 5: unlike anything you've ever seen in your life.
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Speaker 2: It was unlike anything.
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Speaker 5: It was really life changing, honestly for me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, Sean, I'm getting goosebump just hearing
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Speaker 2: you talk about it. Right, So, even the memory of
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Speaker 2: the eclipse has a physical reaction in my body.
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Speaker 5: What what have you noticed when you're in the field
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Speaker 5: watching other people who are seeing it for the first time,
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Speaker 5: Like you talked you talked a minute ago. You covered
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Speaker 5: this partly about people getting emotional, But what other things
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Speaker 5: do you notice that they noticed for the first time?
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's a little bit different for everyone
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Speaker 2: in Spain. This time we were there, we had an
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Speaker 2: entire tour plant around the eclipse. So every day we had,
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Speaker 2: you know, a local guide who's taking us to the
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Speaker 2: Cave of Rock or it's into the city center for
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Speaker 2: its course. And after the eclipse, by after did she
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Speaker 2: see the eclipse, because I mean it went right over
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Speaker 2: their homes and she says, oh, yes, And so I
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Speaker 2: asked her what was the what was the thing that
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Speaker 2: really caught her attention? And for her, it was the
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Speaker 2: shadow coming in at eight hundred miles an hour and
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Speaker 2: just seeing from one side of the sky, just seeing
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Speaker 2: this darkness kind of just roll over the fun and
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Speaker 2: then looking up at the sun and you just never
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Speaker 2: know what it is that's going to catch people. Sometimes
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Speaker 2: it's the animal's behavior differently, but I'll tell you it's
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Speaker 2: on your one hundred percent.
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Speaker 5: Uh.
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Speaker 2: People react, they cry, they yell, they it is an
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Speaker 2: spontaneous verbal exclamation of pure joy because you know, we know,
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Speaker 2: like you said, we know what's really going on. And
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Speaker 2: sometimes I think about people, you know, sort of meeting
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Speaker 2: even people or ancient people a thousand years ago, how
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Speaker 2: terrifying a total lesson. I mean literally, I can totally
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Speaker 2: see somebody like I say, well, this is it. This
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Speaker 2: is how we die, because it's the end of the world.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of.
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Speaker 5: A big yeah. Again, I know that all the timings
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Speaker 5: and you know when the contacts were going to occur,
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Speaker 5: and so, you know, I had kind of a sophisticated
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Speaker 5: view of it. But as you just described, as I
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Speaker 5: was actually standing there experiencing it, it harkened them, you know,
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Speaker 5: you know, someone a sort of primeval memory of like, wow,
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Speaker 5: what would this have been Like if I was just
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Speaker 5: a farmer out here in the field and this just
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Speaker 5: started happening and I knew nothing about it, it.
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Speaker 2: Would have been Yeah. And also even if you know
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Speaker 2: sort of the technical things like, for example, the edge
8:44
Speaker 2: of the moon is not a sphere. The moon has
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Speaker 2: mountains and valleys, and therefore there's a there's a ripples
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Speaker 2: to the edge of the moon. That's the thing that
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Speaker 2: I know technically it's an astronomer. But to have that
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Speaker 2: then represented by a guy and ring the lowest valley
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Speaker 2: and the sun hunching through that lowest valley, it's just
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Speaker 2: it just hits you. It just it hits you. Full
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Speaker 2: force emotionally, and I love them even if I even
9:15
Speaker 2: if I wasn't part of it towards group, I would
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Speaker 2: I would, I would probably try to go to a
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Speaker 2: bunch of Solar closters in my future.
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Speaker 4: Well, I'm one of those losers who's only seen it
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Speaker 4: at like ninety so I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
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Speaker 4: make sure that and and Sean and I have Australia
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Speaker 4: on on our calendars like circled, because we'd like to
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Speaker 4: take the show to the Kimberly and see this in
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Speaker 4: totality because first of all, that's that's the area where
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Speaker 4: my wife was born. She was born near there, so
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Speaker 4: it'd be a trip home for her. But we want
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Speaker 4: to get there for that, So I'm working on it.
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Speaker 4: I'm really trying to.
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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and the closest.
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Speaker 4: That I mean and I and you know, it's not
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Speaker 4: exactly what you're talking about, I know, but the closest
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Speaker 4: I can say that I've kind of had in that
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Speaker 4: experience for me, in sort of a reaction of people
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Speaker 4: around and where we are in Georgia, it's not that
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Speaker 4: difficult for this to happen. So I try to tell
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Speaker 4: people go down and see a rocket launch, because that's
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Speaker 4: another thing that when you're with a crowd of people
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Speaker 4: and you just kind of have this experience together, and
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Speaker 4: it's a very It's like being in a movie theater
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Speaker 4: opening night for some big you know, Marvel movie or whatever,
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Speaker 4: and you're kind of all sharing this experience together. And
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Speaker 4: that's another thing kind of collectively that people don't fully
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Speaker 4: understand until they see it.
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Speaker 2: I completely agree with I never got to see the
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Speaker 2: Cassini launch because I was well, obviously I worked on Voyager,
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Speaker 2: Cassini and Clipper, and I never got to see the
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Speaker 2: Cassini launch, and I was very sad about that because
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Speaker 2: of course, over the years I gave Miny Cassini talks
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Speaker 2: and I showed a video of the launch, and it
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Speaker 2: was always very sad. So when I went to work
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Speaker 2: on the EUGROPA Clipper mission, I and you know, we're
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Speaker 2: headed to launch, and I was very clear that I
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Speaker 2: wanted to be at the launch and I was, and
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Speaker 2: it was again one of those things that you see
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Speaker 2: it happen and then you hear it in the sound
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Speaker 2: of the launch of the rocket rolls over you. It's
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Speaker 2: so much louder than you thought it was going to
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Speaker 2: be and it's so much brighter than you thought it
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Speaker 2: was going to be.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's the way I've always noticed at these
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Speaker 5: launches is just that very thing like the sound obviously,
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Speaker 5: but but the brightness of the rocket exhaust is just
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Speaker 5: absolutely amazing. It's almost like it's almost like you're looking
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Speaker 5: in at a welder's torch or something. It's so bright.
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Speaker 5: And I think is.
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Speaker 2: Right because the cameras, the cameras don't have the range
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Speaker 2: that your eye. That same thing happens in a total
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Speaker 2: solar eclipse. Your eye has a range that is, you know,
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Speaker 2: just a dynamic range. There's so much greater than the camera.
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Speaker 2: So when a camera is video taping a launch, the
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Speaker 2: camera adjournt things automatically to the to the brightness of
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Speaker 2: the of the of the rockets, and so you don't
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Speaker 2: see what you see with your eye. So I absolutely
12:14
Speaker 2: agree launches are spectacture. Everybody should put that on their bucket.
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Speaker 4: Listed more made of Stars right after this.
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Speaker 5: Well, so speaking of launches, you have had the opportunity
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Speaker 5: to work across three really important missions for investigating the
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Speaker 5: outer Solar system, and so just tell us a little
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Speaker 5: bit about maybe what are some of the biggest lessons
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Speaker 5: that you feel like you've taken uh from from your
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Speaker 5: EXPERI pearances working on those missions to go out to
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Speaker 5: the depths of our solar system and bring back important data.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let me let me think a couple of lessons. Okay,
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Speaker 2: I'll pick kind of two different types of lessons. I'll
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Speaker 2: fix lessons that are shared of like human lessons, the
13:18
Speaker 2: lessons that are more specific to the field. In terms
13:22
Speaker 2: of human lessons, one of the things that I feel
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Speaker 2: massive us very well is they work together in teams.
13:30
Speaker 2: And I did not appreciate when I was younger how
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Speaker 2: much being a good team player was going to matter
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Speaker 2: for my career but also for my personal life. And
13:45
Speaker 2: having learned that lesson at work and then being able
13:48
Speaker 2: to apply it sort of in my friend's circle and
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Speaker 2: my family's circle, and you know, even even something as
13:56
Speaker 2: simple as something as simple as getting tickets the Olympics. Right,
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Speaker 2: I live in Los Angeles and the Olympics are coming,
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Speaker 2: and we all want tickets, and the local people are
14:07
Speaker 2: going to get a chance to buy tickets early. The
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Speaker 2: first thing I did is, so let's have a team.
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Speaker 2: Let's have a team. And then you have to figure
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Speaker 2: out how many people need to be on the team,
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Speaker 2: and our answer was six. Everybody, you could buy twelve tickets.
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Speaker 2: So everybody gets their their top choice, uh, you know,
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Speaker 2: their top two choices then and then the first person
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Speaker 2: gets in gets everybody's top choice. Right, Even something as
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Speaker 2: simple as that, Applying this lesson of being good in
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Speaker 2: teams something that I feel was really hammered home to
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Speaker 2: me when I worked at NASA's jeffro Punctional Laboratory. On
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Speaker 2: the professional side, I would say of the one of
14:46
Speaker 2: the lessons that I learned was sort of how mentors
14:55
Speaker 2: and mentees, but informal, even informally, the importance of ment
15:00
Speaker 2: more than your life. Every job I had at JPL
15:03
Speaker 2: at some point, even when I was going after one
15:06
Speaker 2: of the one of the you know, my first manage
15:09
Speaker 2: a home, and when I got it, the first thing
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Speaker 2: I did was go out to find a mentor. But
15:14
Speaker 2: even informally, the role of the older generation teaching the
15:17
Speaker 2: younger generation was really impressed upon me in terms of
15:22
Speaker 2: my work experience because of the missions that I did
15:24
Speaker 2: work on. I started on Voyager. I didn't start a
15:27
Speaker 2: Voyager early, right, Voyger launching nineteen seventy seven. I was
15:30
Speaker 2: ten years old, but I came to Voyager that tune
15:33
Speaker 2: encounter and as a left tune encounter, that scene was extraordinary.
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Speaker 2: They've been together for twenty or thirty years. They everybody
15:42
Speaker 2: knew everybody, everybody knew their jobs, everybody knew who was
15:46
Speaker 2: good at their job, and they knew everything, and everything
15:50
Speaker 2: seemed very smooth. Every every month, anomaly or emergency just
15:55
Speaker 2: is easily and well handled because everybody knew what to do.
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Speaker 2: Then I transitioned who was in the very early stages
16:02
Speaker 2: were just being built, and it seemed to me here chaos.
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Speaker 2: Nobody knew anything, nobody did in local jobs. They didn't
16:10
Speaker 2: know what to do, they didn't know who was they
16:12
Speaker 2: didn't know who was good and who you could trust.
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Speaker 2: It's the eye of what is going on because in
16:17
Speaker 2: my experience now to have these incredible teams. And then
16:20
Speaker 2: what I realized is that the people who come over
16:23
Speaker 2: and bring that experience and then they teach the next, uh,
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Speaker 2: you know, the next group of people how to build
16:30
Speaker 2: a team and what the teams need to look like.
16:32
Speaker 2: And so then by the end of the Catini mission,
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Speaker 2: again people did work together for twenty or thirty years.
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Speaker 2: Everything was smooth, all the lines of communication with Crystal Clear,
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Speaker 2: everything was flu you know, every it was easy in
16:46
Speaker 2: some way. And then to move finally over to Clipper.
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Speaker 2: It's my third mission that time, because I understood my
16:53
Speaker 2: role as a sort of a I don't want to
16:56
Speaker 2: say the old wise gray beard. That's kind of a
16:59
Speaker 2: name that gets added to that person somebody with a
17:02
Speaker 2: lot of experience coming in and say, Okay, hey, by
17:05
Speaker 2: the way, let's let's let's try this. What do you
17:07
Speaker 2: guys think about this. Let's uh, you know, for what
17:10
Speaker 2: about a team that does this function? Uh, let's think
17:14
Speaker 2: about creating that that's worked very well on other missions.
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Speaker 2: So those are two lessons sort of a long winded
17:21
Speaker 2: answer West, but sort of two lessons that that has
17:25
Speaker 2: come to me from my life at JPL.
17:28
Speaker 4: Well, long winded's not bad when they're good answers, and
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Speaker 4: those are good answers. You mentioned Neptune, and and I
17:35
Speaker 4: just I'm curious to know, like in these moments where you're,
17:38
Speaker 4: you know, getting this look at Neptune up close for
17:41
Speaker 4: the first time, and you're you're obviously you have to
17:45
Speaker 4: be kind of taken back we're talking about eclipses and
17:48
Speaker 4: we're talking about rocket launches, but getting to look at
17:51
Speaker 4: Neptune up close is different and amazing and kind of
17:55
Speaker 4: part of in this historic sense. While this kind of
17:58
Speaker 4: thing is happening, are there moments there where you're just
18:02
Speaker 4: kind of taking that in and realizing, oh my gosh,
18:04
Speaker 4: Like this is something for the history books, this is
18:07
Speaker 4: something for I would say encyclopedias, but we don't do
18:09
Speaker 4: that anymore. But you know, this is something that is
18:12
Speaker 4: obviously has long term ramifications. Are you in that moment
18:16
Speaker 4: thinking of that in any way or are you just
18:18
Speaker 4: kind of taking it in yourself and then later that
18:20
Speaker 4: hits you.
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Speaker 2: A little bit of both. So in the moment you're
18:25
Speaker 2: doing your job, you want to do your job well,
18:27
Speaker 2: but it's very exciting. Boyder had a oh gosh, what's
18:33
Speaker 2: there's there's a good work order. I just I just
18:36
Speaker 2: can't think of that it. Like I said, I got
18:37
Speaker 2: back with my total Coler eclipse and my brain is
18:41
Speaker 2: not at one hundred percent. But sort of the the
18:46
Speaker 2: the flavor maybe is the flavor of the of the encounter.
18:51
Speaker 2: Boyder had a very unique flavor, which is as you're
18:55
Speaker 2: as you're approaching your targets. Every picture that is taken
19:00
Speaker 2: of Neptune is better than the last picture, which was
19:04
Speaker 2: the best picture that had ever been taken. That's Neptun.
19:07
Speaker 2: And so look every moment when a new image was
19:11
Speaker 2: revealed on the screen, everybody stopped what they were doing
19:14
Speaker 2: and they looked up at it and it was like, wow,
19:17
Speaker 2: that's the best picture of Neptune that has ever been taken.
19:21
Speaker 2: And then you go back to your job. But so
19:24
Speaker 2: this just build and build, and it gets faster on
19:26
Speaker 2: past as you get to a post. Then sort of
19:29
Speaker 2: the day around closer approaches. This just this absolute glorry
19:34
Speaker 2: of action, and the sequences are are popping off one
19:40
Speaker 2: by one, and all the teams are involved. You know,
19:43
Speaker 2: early on it's only really the camera team, but as
19:45
Speaker 2: you get closer, all they see two instruments, they all
19:48
Speaker 2: start having interesting things and data coming down, and it
19:51
Speaker 2: so just build like an exponential thing. And then on
19:55
Speaker 2: the backside it's the same thing but oppositely very quick,
20:00
Speaker 2: kind of with this long aced code of and so
20:04
Speaker 2: you really get to appreciate the moment. And of course Voyager,
20:12
Speaker 2: especially the Netsitting Counter nineteen eighty nine three Internet, the
20:15
Speaker 2: press of the world was camped out in our Dorset.
20:19
Speaker 2: They brought in thirty trailers and they put them on
20:21
Speaker 2: the streets. Nobody could drive on the street and park
20:24
Speaker 2: on the streets. They just put the press trailers and
20:27
Speaker 2: the press would tromp on over to the Long Carbent
20:30
Speaker 2: Auditorium and there would be a press complice and they
20:33
Speaker 2: would show it all in all of the offices. You
20:36
Speaker 2: could see it up on the screens and all in
20:38
Speaker 2: the corners of all the offices, and it was just
20:41
Speaker 2: it was it was a once in a lifetime experience.
20:43
Speaker 2: It was utterly incredible. Again, it had a flavor that
20:47
Speaker 2: is unique. Every mission has something about it. You know,
20:51
Speaker 2: when they land ropers on Mars and the excitement of
20:54
Speaker 2: the parachutes deploying and then is you know that path hinders,
20:58
Speaker 2: that little thing of a drive off driver, so that
21:00
Speaker 2: there's all there's a lot of excitement when they first
21:03
Speaker 2: land on Mars, and that has just a different flavor, right,
21:07
Speaker 2: It's just the nature of the mission is different. But Voyager,
21:11
Speaker 2: the Big Great Encounters, had this this one month period
21:15
Speaker 2: of extreme excitement and it was community as well. Everybody
21:22
Speaker 2: in the room stops to look at the best picture
21:25
Speaker 2: of nept ever been and it was it was really
21:29
Speaker 2: it was a it was a privilege to work on
21:31
Speaker 2: that mission.
21:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's nice to hear you say that because that
21:36
Speaker 5: I think that's inspiring to the many students of mine
21:39
Speaker 5: that listen to the program. And you, you obviously have
21:43
Speaker 5: a nice perspective of how privileged you work to be there.
21:46
Speaker 5: At that time, you just had a dream job. Friend,
21:49
Speaker 5: let me just tell you, that's a fantastic career experience for.
21:53
Speaker 2: You, one hundred percent you and it was, and it
21:58
Speaker 2: was pure pure luck. So for the students, for your students, John,
22:03
Speaker 2: I was at a college. I was majoring in physics
22:06
Speaker 2: astronomy minor California State University Enters. And as one does
22:11
Speaker 2: when one is in college, you know, you get advice
22:14
Speaker 2: from sort of career counselors and they're like, you should
22:16
Speaker 2: do a summer internship. And I'm like, oh, okay. So
22:20
Speaker 2: I went down to the career office and I got
22:23
Speaker 2: the little form that was a paper form to fill
22:25
Speaker 2: out to say, you know, I would like to have
22:27
Speaker 2: a summer internship. That then the career office would shop
22:30
Speaker 2: that around the various companies in Los Angeles, but not
22:33
Speaker 2: quite a few in North Trip from In, you know,
22:36
Speaker 2: Lockey Martin, all those they were local, but there was
22:39
Speaker 2: also JPL. And on the forum they did want to
22:42
Speaker 2: know what your background is, and they want to know
22:44
Speaker 2: what like your hobbies is and one of the things
22:46
Speaker 2: you're interested in. And I'm like, I didn't have any right.
22:49
Speaker 2: I read science fiction and I hung that with my friends.
22:52
Speaker 2: So I said, well, you know, I should do something.
22:54
Speaker 2: I should do something that shows that I have something
22:59
Speaker 2: of interest outside at school. So I went to the
23:01
Speaker 2: local astronomy club JAW. That was my big reach. I
23:04
Speaker 2: went to the local astronomy club and I showed up
23:07
Speaker 2: on a Wednesday night, I remember very specifically, and I said, oh, yeah,
23:12
Speaker 2: you know, I'm getting ready to ave for oh I
23:14
Speaker 2: at the university. I'm getting ready to ply for internship.
23:17
Speaker 5: And.
23:19
Speaker 2: Uh, I want you know, and I mentioned jail specific
23:22
Speaker 2: He said, oh, you should talk to Rick. Rick works
23:24
Speaker 2: at JPL. But at some point I got induced to
23:26
Speaker 2: Rick and Rick was, oh, this girl wants the job
23:29
Speaker 2: at KTL. And he's like, oh, wow, you know, I
23:31
Speaker 2: actually know somebody who needs somebody. Can you drop your
23:34
Speaker 2: resume off tomorrow? And I looked him dead in the
23:37
Speaker 2: eye and lied and I said, I'm so sorry, Rick,
23:40
Speaker 2: I have an appointment tomorrow that I can't get away from,
23:42
Speaker 2: but could I drop it off on Friday? This is
23:44
Speaker 2: absolutely sean. I had no resume. I spent Thursday. My
23:50
Speaker 2: dad just went to the stationary store and we bought
23:52
Speaker 2: the twenty bond papers and I hand laid out of
23:55
Speaker 2: resume and then I had to type three perfect copies
23:59
Speaker 2: without making mistakes because it was free computer days on
24:03
Speaker 2: the typewriter. I just had got three perfect copies. Anyway,
24:06
Speaker 2: I tried to went in and met with Ricks, and
24:08
Speaker 2: by my day I had a job on a voyager project.
24:11
Speaker 2: And so what I tell students young people is I
24:14
Speaker 2: didn't have a plan. It says, I'm going to get
24:16
Speaker 2: a job at JPL, and what do I need to
24:18
Speaker 2: do to do that? Although I know many people, many
24:20
Speaker 2: of my coffees, were like this, but I had done
24:23
Speaker 2: well in school and when the opportunity presented itself, I
24:27
Speaker 2: was able to take advantage of it. And so I
24:29
Speaker 2: know some people say that luck is preparedness needs opportunity,
24:34
Speaker 2: and that really did resonate with me. It was I
24:37
Speaker 2: went to the start of the club meeting to sort
24:40
Speaker 2: of enhance my ability to get a job. I frotuitously
24:45
Speaker 2: met a connection and networking connections, and when the opportunity
24:50
Speaker 2: presented itself, I was able to give them a resume.
24:53
Speaker 2: I had good letters of recommendation, I had good grades
24:56
Speaker 2: and they and they were like, yep, okay, we'll pick
24:58
Speaker 2: a chance on this gown. And of course, and that
25:00
Speaker 2: started a career. That so that's that's a good story
25:06
Speaker 2: for your students.
25:07
Speaker 5: I love that story. I think that's fantastic. And you're right,
25:10
Speaker 5: you know, there's there's something about you know, just the
25:12
Speaker 5: tenacity and the and the you know, the decision to
25:16
Speaker 5: just stick with it and chase it and pursue those
25:18
Speaker 5: opportunities that I also love in that story. I myself
25:21
Speaker 5: am a reformed amateur astronomer, you know. And I say
25:25
Speaker 5: I say reformed. I actually spent almost almost a decade
25:30
Speaker 5: just as a hobbyist before I I really made the
25:33
Speaker 5: decision to pursue physics. And physics was a second degree
25:37
Speaker 5: track for me. I originally started out in a mass
25:40
Speaker 5: communications major, and so I jumped to physics and then
25:44
Speaker 5: you know, fell in love with astrophysics and then pursued
25:47
Speaker 5: it through the PhD. And and so there's nothing like
25:51
Speaker 5: inspiration to really set your your career course. And that's
25:55
Speaker 5: that's the thing I love about your story is that
25:57
Speaker 5: you were you were inspired by those opportunities. It put
26:01
Speaker 5: you down a career track and now you've had this
26:04
Speaker 5: absolute dream career and we really appreciate you sharing those
26:07
Speaker 5: details about that. That's that's a great story of an
26:11
Speaker 5: origin story, so to speak.
26:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually you're good too, because you took a
26:16
Speaker 2: big risk going for a mass communications background into physics.
26:20
Speaker 2: That's a risk.
26:23
Speaker 5: It was a jump I had to learn, now, is
26:26
Speaker 5: what it. Yeah, in mass communications, there was you know,
26:32
Speaker 5: there was some math involved, but obviously it's a little
26:35
Speaker 5: different jumping to physics, so that I guess that was
26:37
Speaker 5: the risky part.
26:38
Speaker 4: What's funny about about you guys sharing that is Uh,
26:42
Speaker 4: I had to bluff my way into my first broadcasting job.
26:45
Speaker 4: So without a lot of bluffing, the three of us
26:47
Speaker 4: would not be here right now at all. This conversation
26:50
Speaker 4: wouldn't even exist. So yeah, that's it's kind of good.
26:55
Speaker 4: This is a good lesson for everybody that sometimes you
26:57
Speaker 4: got to fake it till you make it, or just.
27:00
Speaker 2: A little bit of a bluff.
27:01
Speaker 4: You know, sometimes you got to do that. Sometimes you
27:03
Speaker 4: got to go type up that resume and you need
27:05
Speaker 4: a couple of extra days. Did your boss ever find
27:08
Speaker 4: out that you did that? Or is that something else? Okay? Good?
27:12
Speaker 2: I mean, I I mean after Voyager and then I
27:15
Speaker 2: got my job on Confedia, at some point I started
27:18
Speaker 2: doing more public speaking. Complete it was realized where I
27:21
Speaker 2: really started doing a lot of public speaking. JPL is
27:24
Speaker 2: very encouraging with people to go off and do public speaking.
27:28
Speaker 2: You know, they someone senior on the team often has
27:32
Speaker 2: a slide deck that you can borrow and then modify
27:35
Speaker 2: to make it your own. That you know, you can
27:38
Speaker 2: get a little bit of funding if you're a group
27:40
Speaker 2: speakers esor agreed to like pay uh, like you're mile
27:44
Speaker 2: age if you're driving to a local event that kind
27:46
Speaker 2: of thing. For something further a field, they don't pay
27:50
Speaker 2: for that, Like for a dragon call. They wouldn't pay
27:53
Speaker 2: for me to go to dragon And I go to
27:55
Speaker 2: Dragon Coon on my own because I love I love
27:57
Speaker 2: to do it. But are doing a lot of public
28:01
Speaker 2: speaking for at astronomy clubs and at the county Fair
28:06
Speaker 2: and an open house. Uh, just really enjoying it. Not
28:11
Speaker 2: every scientist is good at at science communication. I happened
28:15
Speaker 2: to be one that's pretty good at it, and so
28:18
Speaker 2: I did sort of my fair share and the fair
28:20
Speaker 2: share of a bunch of other people, and I really
28:23
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. It just started to be more and more
28:26
Speaker 2: and more of it, and it's been one of the
28:28
Speaker 2: things that has been a bonus of my career is
28:33
Speaker 2: to be able to share it with people in an
28:35
Speaker 2: exciting way and in different forms science fiction conventions, work
28:38
Speaker 2: with tours, or astronomy clubs or you know, all these
28:43
Speaker 2: different places. You know, being invited to be the keynote
28:45
Speaker 2: secur at an event, that sort of thing.
28:47
Speaker 4: More made of stars right after this, and I think
29:10
Speaker 4: it's important to note we talk about kind of bluffing
29:12
Speaker 4: it or making kind of taking a leap of faith
29:14
Speaker 4: and making a change and transition and things. The other
29:17
Speaker 4: part of it is you got to really believe that
29:18
Speaker 4: you're capable of doing it. So, at least in this
29:21
Speaker 4: case for the three of us, like things panned out well.
29:24
Speaker 4: So that's the other part of it. Now, as far
29:26
Speaker 4: as you do well, that's right, that's right. And I
29:30
Speaker 4: know you probably have encountered this. I've encountered this where
29:34
Speaker 4: people go, oh, you're so lucky you got to do
29:36
Speaker 4: these things, and it's like, or you know, sure, there's
29:39
Speaker 4: a certain amount of blessing that comes with what we do,
29:41
Speaker 4: but you you put in the work. That's certainly a
29:44
Speaker 4: big part of all of that. So when you're giving
29:48
Speaker 4: advice to kind of upcoming high school or college students,
29:52
Speaker 4: other than you know, fake it till you make it
29:54
Speaker 4: as a as a potential piece of advice, I wouldn't say.
29:57
Speaker 2: It till you make it the less of their west.
30:00
Speaker 2: I think the lesson was it was for me, the
30:06
Speaker 2: lesson was, Okay, a little block now and then it
30:12
Speaker 2: can help you out.
30:13
Speaker 4: That's better. I didn't really fake it till I made it.
30:15
Speaker 4: I just kind of bluffed my way in the door.
30:18
Speaker 4: And then on the first day, you know, it was
30:20
Speaker 4: good enough that someone else then offered me a second job,
30:23
Speaker 4: So it worked well. Once I got in there, I
30:26
Speaker 4: knew what I could do. I guess that's the important
30:28
Speaker 4: part of it, right.
30:29
Speaker 5: Yeah. One of the things I think plays into all
30:32
Speaker 5: that too, is that people are just afraid to take
30:35
Speaker 5: that step. It's just a self exclusion, right. They just say,
30:40
Speaker 5: I'm just not good enough, or they suffer from imposter
30:43
Speaker 5: syndrome or something that just limits them to even you know,
30:48
Speaker 5: as you did with the resume, like you said, Okay,
30:50
Speaker 5: well I'm gonna make sure I get a resume. I'm
30:52
Speaker 5: going to make sure I have it my Friday. And
30:54
Speaker 5: you did not self exclude. You you were bold enough
30:57
Speaker 5: to take those steps to get your foot in that door.
31:00
Speaker 5: And I think I find that a lot of people
31:02
Speaker 5: will tend to self exclude. And one of the things
31:05
Speaker 5: we try to preach around here when we're working with
31:07
Speaker 5: students and we're trying to inspire them into pursuing science careers,
31:11
Speaker 5: is you can do this. Yes, it's going to be
31:14
Speaker 5: a lot of work, but believe in yourself. You do
31:17
Speaker 5: have the ability. You can do this. Right, so, and
31:21
Speaker 5: don't self exclude, I think is a very important lesson.
31:24
Speaker 5: What do you think about that?
31:26
Speaker 2: I agree one hundred percent. It happens all the time.
31:29
Speaker 2: When I was a manager at JPL in a particular job,
31:32
Speaker 2: it would come up and there would be this, you know,
31:34
Speaker 2: this requisition, and I would be talking to some of
31:37
Speaker 2: my employees and well, I don't have that.
31:39
Speaker 5: I don't have that.
31:40
Speaker 2: I said, let's start to talk. You have this and
31:43
Speaker 2: this and this. Okay, this is an area where you'll leave.
31:45
Speaker 2: This is your growth opportunity. This part here that you
31:48
Speaker 2: don't have. This is how this job will help you grow.
31:51
Speaker 2: But then you have this and they seem to focus
31:54
Speaker 2: on the things that they didn't have instead of focusing
31:57
Speaker 2: on the things that they did. And always I really
32:03
Speaker 2: like that, phraise. I learned that much life about buck.
32:05
Speaker 2: I think I mentioned it before, Luckys, opportunity meets preparedness
32:12
Speaker 2: it Yes, it was lucky. Right. I lived in southern
32:15
Speaker 2: California and I had a physics degree and I went
32:17
Speaker 2: to this astronomy club and I met this guy Rick
32:19
Speaker 2: right Like, those were all luck those were not planned Stave.
32:23
Speaker 2: But then the fact that I had good grades that
32:27
Speaker 2: came from my efforts, and that I had a good
32:30
Speaker 2: h I had done a work for the Solar Astronomy
32:35
Speaker 2: Power and I had it sort of, I had a
32:37
Speaker 2: recommendation of work, recommendation that was very strong that came
32:42
Speaker 2: from my efforts. And also, you know, when you work
32:45
Speaker 2: at JPL, I tell you, guys, you're working with some
32:48
Speaker 2: of the smartest people in the world, really the smartest
32:50
Speaker 2: people in the world, and sooner or later, everybody pops
32:56
Speaker 2: out where they're just their natural brilliance can only get
32:58
Speaker 2: them so far, and the difference is how much work
33:02
Speaker 2: you put in. Those people who are less naturally brilliant,
33:06
Speaker 2: they have to work harder earlier. The ones who are
33:09
Speaker 2: naturally brilliant, you know, or later they have to work too.
33:13
Speaker 2: But it's just sometimes you just have to work harder,
33:17
Speaker 2: work harder, and work smarter, and that's how you get ahead.
33:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's really that's really great advice too, And thank
33:24
Speaker 5: you for sharing that. We do have some of our
33:26
Speaker 5: students who listen to the podcast, so that's really great
33:28
Speaker 5: for them to be able to hear that. I want
33:30
Speaker 5: to just in a little time we have left, I
33:32
Speaker 5: want to just touch quickly on on Cassini and on
33:35
Speaker 5: Europe a clip or just a couple of questions. So,
33:38
Speaker 5: so with Cassini in particular, what what are the kinds
33:43
Speaker 5: of things I mean, you were the science team co chair.
33:47
Speaker 5: What kinds of things did Cassini reveal either about Saturn
33:51
Speaker 5: or Titan that really surprised you? Or maybe that we
33:55
Speaker 5: really didn't have a full appreciation of what we were
33:58
Speaker 5: going to find out until those missions arrived. And took data.
34:02
Speaker 5: Do you have do you have an impression about that?
34:06
Speaker 2: I do. Let me get my thoughts in order here. So,
34:09
Speaker 2: first of all, I was on the Titan team. When
34:12
Speaker 2: I was the co chair of the Titan teem on Cassini,
34:15
Speaker 2: we had five disciplines. We had the planet, we had
34:17
Speaker 2: the magneta sphere, we had the rings. Obviously every ring
34:22
Speaker 2: expert in the world was on Cassini. We had we
34:24
Speaker 2: had all the IC to satellite, and then Titan was
34:26
Speaker 2: very special and I worked on the Titan group. I
34:29
Speaker 2: worked on all. I was assigned to the Titan group early,
34:32
Speaker 2: and then by the end I was the co chair
34:34
Speaker 2: of the of the of that te the Titan Order
34:37
Speaker 2: assign Team. Okay, so there are certain things that are
34:43
Speaker 2: unexpected that you didn't know you were going to discover
34:47
Speaker 2: when you until you got there, things like the plume
34:51
Speaker 2: on Instelabus that was just incredible, just incredible. There are
34:55
Speaker 2: certain things that you knew you were going to learn
34:57
Speaker 2: when you got there, things like, uh, you knew you
35:01
Speaker 2: didn't know exactly what you were going to learn, but
35:03
Speaker 2: you knew you were going to learn about the rings
35:04
Speaker 2: of Saturn. You were going to learn about the structures.
35:07
Speaker 2: You were going to learn about the physics behind them,
35:10
Speaker 2: the physics of this system. You were going to discover
35:13
Speaker 2: things that you didn't know before, like the little propellers
35:16
Speaker 2: or the fact that the rings of Saturn actually responded
35:19
Speaker 2: to the interior of Saturn on Titan. Titan was the
35:25
Speaker 2: largest piece of unexplored territories left in the Solar System
35:31
Speaker 2: when we got there. Uh, the fact that Titan has
35:34
Speaker 2: a thick atmosphere had shrouded its surface from us. We
35:39
Speaker 2: started to look even on the ilk in infrared and
35:42
Speaker 2: had started didn't see the sort of these big blotches
35:46
Speaker 2: of sort of dark and white territory, and so revealing
35:49
Speaker 2: the surface we knew nothing. We knew nothing, and revealing
35:54
Speaker 2: the surface of Titans to be this complex system that
36:00
Speaker 2: involves methane the way that Earth involves water. Right on
36:04
Speaker 2: Tightan we have methane clouds and methane rain, methane rivers
36:08
Speaker 2: and methane lakes and the Munkean. Please, I mean, that's
36:11
Speaker 2: just it is just it was incredible to have that
36:17
Speaker 2: sort of discovery, that difference, like you know next to
36:22
Speaker 2: nothing and now we know so much about that, We
36:25
Speaker 2: know so much that it was given as a target
36:28
Speaker 2: for one of the New Frontiers missions.
36:30
Speaker 3: Uh.
36:31
Speaker 2: And and the next New Frontiers mission that is going
36:34
Speaker 2: to be launched, it's a Dragonfly mission, which is going
36:36
Speaker 2: to be an octicopter on Titan. Uh, you know, flying
36:42
Speaker 2: from place to place and investigating Titan surface. So I
36:46
Speaker 2: think revealing Titan was the work of one hundred and
36:51
Speaker 2: twenty seven flybys that it was, and you didn't know
36:53
Speaker 2: what you were going to find when before you got there.
36:57
Speaker 2: So obviously those things things things that you didn't know
37:01
Speaker 2: at all, Things that you knew you were going to learn,
37:05
Speaker 2: but you didn't know what you were going to learn, right,
37:07
Speaker 2: things about Saturn and the rings and the magnetistry, and
37:10
Speaker 2: then things that were just unexpected, uh, going from knowing
37:14
Speaker 2: next to nothing to knowing so much about Tide.
37:18
Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaking of Dragonfly, we we know it's going to
37:21
Speaker 5: find new things that we don't know yet or don't
37:23
Speaker 5: expect yet. What what do you think is the most
37:26
Speaker 5: important targeted question we have, Like, like something we know
37:30
Speaker 5: that Dragonfly will investigate that will reveal things. Do you
37:32
Speaker 5: have do you have an idea about that? From your
37:35
Speaker 5: from your.
37:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean I am so excited too, uh,
37:42
Speaker 2: just to learn what they learn about the surface, you know,
37:45
Speaker 2: to actually sample the surface. Well, I think it's going
37:48
Speaker 2: to be amazing. So I would say that sampling the
37:52
Speaker 2: surface is going to be you know, the thing that
37:56
Speaker 2: is going to blow it all away.
38:00
Speaker 5: It is such as an interesting world that Yeah, we
38:03
Speaker 5: just can't wait to see that data come back. That's
38:05
Speaker 5: really going to be great.
38:06
Speaker 2: What a great idea to have something that flies around
38:10
Speaker 2: Titan fight is the like, what it's the second pick
38:13
Speaker 2: of that there there it's right Venus fight and Earth
38:16
Speaker 2: and then large, very very thin and uh, you know,
38:22
Speaker 2: just the idea. The concept of the mission is great.
38:26
Speaker 2: Let's land this thing. Besides, it's huge, it's the sides
38:29
Speaker 2: of like a mini cooper, and you're gonna fly it
38:33
Speaker 2: around and you're gonna like a you know, like a
38:37
Speaker 2: helicopter or you know, like a drone. You gonna fly
38:40
Speaker 2: around like a drone and then when you land, you're
38:43
Speaker 2: going to do all this chemistry. You know, it's what
38:46
Speaker 2: a great just the concept of this mission school.
38:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm really excited about that too. We we trained
38:52
Speaker 5: students in robotics and drones here as well, and we
38:55
Speaker 5: use the dragonfly as an example of like, well why
38:57
Speaker 5: do you why do you want to learn about drones
38:59
Speaker 5: for space exploration? Well, Dragonfly obviously ingenuity, they're both answers
39:05
Speaker 5: to that question.
39:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, more made of stars right after this, Trina, you
39:30
Speaker 4: talked a little bit about dragon Con a little bit earlier,
39:33
Speaker 4: and this is going to be my twenty fifth year
39:36
Speaker 4: covering dragon Con. I've seen this convention grow from about
39:40
Speaker 4: twenty thousand people that year to you know, pushing one
39:44
Speaker 4: hundred thousand. They've kind of cap it now a little
39:46
Speaker 4: bit after COVID. But what's been one of the best
39:51
Speaker 4: things about the convention is not just the growth in numbers,
39:56
Speaker 4: but also the introduction over the years of different tracks genres,
40:00
Speaker 4: and there's been so many different ones, and now of
40:03
Speaker 4: course science and space tracks that have grown, and it
40:06
Speaker 4: allows an opportunity for professionals like you to come in
40:10
Speaker 4: and talk astronauts, to come and talk consultants, people who
40:14
Speaker 4: consult on movies, TV shows, things like that. So just
40:18
Speaker 4: talk a little bit about your experience with dragon I
40:20
Speaker 4: know you're a longtime veteran as well.
40:22
Speaker 2: I am a longtime veteran. Yes, I got Robin probably,
40:27
Speaker 2: I don't think twenty five years I'll tink on closer
40:30
Speaker 2: to the twenty years, and the Space Track was sort
40:34
Speaker 2: of up and coming. And of course if you work
40:36
Speaker 2: at Chances dims and there's a space track out there.
40:40
Speaker 2: Most conventions are smaller than Dragon cons and they only
40:43
Speaker 2: have a science track and they bring in sort of
40:46
Speaker 2: the space people as well. But one of the things
40:49
Speaker 2: I like about all science fiction conventions is that there
40:52
Speaker 2: is a part of the community that is very interested
40:55
Speaker 2: in science. They read science fiction, they go to science
40:59
Speaker 2: fiction movies, they think about it. They get intrigued by
41:03
Speaker 2: something Andy's Weird wrote in The Martian and I actually
41:07
Speaker 2: go off and they learn something about Mars from it.
41:11
Speaker 2: And so that community that is naturally and naturally attends
41:17
Speaker 2: science fiction convention is just a wonderful community to present
41:22
Speaker 2: in front of. They're very they're very excited that you're there.
41:26
Speaker 2: A professional massive scientists is there, and they come back
41:32
Speaker 2: year after year. Like I've gone to Space Track for
41:34
Speaker 2: twenty years, and there are people who are in Space
41:38
Speaker 2: Track the whole day. That is like their vacation. They
41:43
Speaker 2: come and they learn about all these different scientists and
41:46
Speaker 2: the track directors all the rain rain he works so
41:51
Speaker 2: hard to put together an interesting program and it's just
41:56
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. Dragon Cai by far has them a client
42:02
Speaker 2: in their in their in their tracks. Like I said,
42:05
Speaker 2: most of the conventions only have just a one track
42:08
Speaker 2: science track, and that means there's a room. That room
42:11
Speaker 2: is filled, uh from morning to night, all the days
42:15
Speaker 2: of the column with different presentations and one person who's
42:18
Speaker 2: in charge of putting that plan together. And Rain does
42:23
Speaker 2: a wonderful job for dragon Con. And I really enjoy
42:28
Speaker 2: going to Dragonon. It's it's my I've gone to comic Con,
42:30
Speaker 2: I've bonded World Con, I've bonded local conventions, geek will Conict,
42:35
Speaker 2: the Seattle, et cetera. But dragon Con is my favorite.
42:40
Speaker 4: And Sean and I often talk about those connections between
42:43
Speaker 4: science and science fiction, the way they sort of feed
42:46
Speaker 4: each other and contribute to each other over the years,
42:50
Speaker 4: and I know you've seen a lot of that over
42:52
Speaker 4: the span of your career.
42:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, science fiction is a gateway drugs, right, That's how
42:56
Speaker 2: I think. That's the phrase I use.
42:59
Speaker 4: Uh.
43:00
Speaker 2: Happened with me when I was in high school and
43:02
Speaker 2: me and my friends we watched Star Treks and of
43:04
Speaker 2: course Star Wars had hit when we were about ten
43:07
Speaker 2: years old, ten eleven, twelve years old, as Star Wars
43:10
Speaker 2: changed changed movies forever, right, it was it was a
43:15
Speaker 2: it was an incredible thing that happened to all of us,
43:18
Speaker 2: and we were all in science fiction. Uh, and that
43:24
Speaker 2: when we went in to study physics, you know, that
43:27
Speaker 2: was part of it was because a lot of times
43:29
Speaker 2: the heroes and the story were scientists or engineers that
43:33
Speaker 2: had stayed the day, and a lot of us were
43:35
Speaker 2: influenced by the Apollo Missions. Although we were a little young,
43:39
Speaker 2: we didn't see it live. I mean I was a
43:42
Speaker 2: live in the late sixties, but I wasn't. I was
43:46
Speaker 2: a doddler, so I wasn't I wasn't taking it in
43:49
Speaker 2: the way sort of the generation before me took in
43:52
Speaker 2: the Apollo Missions. I absolutely there's this connection between science
43:57
Speaker 2: fiction and and an actual and actually doing science.
44:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it's it's an interesting phenomenon when you talk
44:08
Speaker 5: with people about what inspired them to go into the
44:13
Speaker 5: various sciences, and so often it is entertainment, or it
44:17
Speaker 5: is you know, literature, or or it's it's something that
44:21
Speaker 5: was an art form that inspired them to pursue science.
44:25
Speaker 5: And like you, I I kind of grew up in
44:27
Speaker 5: the Star Trek Star Wars generation as well. Uh saw
44:30
Speaker 5: Star Wars originally in the theater for the first time,
44:32
Speaker 5: that kind of thing. But also Carl Sagan and Cosmos
44:36
Speaker 5: was a huge that media experience on PBS. You know
44:45
Speaker 5: that there was an appointment viewing.
44:48
Speaker 2: It was. It was wonderful. We watched it. Uh, we
44:52
Speaker 2: watched it every week when it came on. In fact,
44:55
Speaker 2: somebody somewhere did a a study and I I never
44:59
Speaker 2: went off and actually found it, but they it was
45:01
Speaker 2: a survey basically a professionals in the science field, and
45:05
Speaker 2: they said, you know, what was your inspiration? There was
45:08
Speaker 2: this huge peak around Apollo, right, just huge that people
45:13
Speaker 2: were inspired by the moon landing. The next biggest peak,
45:16
Speaker 2: next biggest peak Seawan was Cosmos. That was the next
45:19
Speaker 2: biggest one. And then underlying it all was sort of
45:22
Speaker 2: this Star Trek, Star Wars science fiction literature stuff that
45:26
Speaker 2: the two distinguishable peaks were the Apollo omissions and then
45:31
Speaker 2: cos Cosmos.
45:33
Speaker 5: The original Cosmos was so beautifully done. And I can
45:37
Speaker 5: go back and just see a clip or two from
45:39
Speaker 5: from that series once in a while and just it
45:41
Speaker 5: still gives me a lump in my throat at certain
45:44
Speaker 5: points were Carl Sagan's talking about our place in the universe.
45:48
Speaker 5: And I know why that inspired me. It's it's really tremendous.
45:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was. He was really tremendous. I met him
45:55
Speaker 2: once on he would come he wasn't working on the
45:59
Speaker 2: boards team that he worked with the Voyger team a
46:02
Speaker 2: little bit, and of course they would invite him. And
46:05
Speaker 2: then when Voyder turned around to take the picture of
46:07
Speaker 2: the solar system right, the self portrait of the Solar system,
46:11
Speaker 2: and Carl was the one they chose to reveal that
46:13
Speaker 2: image to the world. And if you haven't seen that
46:16
Speaker 2: clip where he's revealing the the portrait of the Solar
46:21
Speaker 2: systems Voyager, I highly recommend you to do it. It's
46:25
Speaker 2: it'll give you when you when you watch and talk
46:28
Speaker 2: about it and this and the Earth and the sunbeams
46:31
Speaker 2: and how everyone you know and everyone who's ever lived
46:34
Speaker 2: you know, Oh, it can't do it justice. You just
46:38
Speaker 2: have to go watch Carl talk about it.
46:40
Speaker 5: Fantastic.
46:41
Speaker 4: Well, Trina, we appreciate your time today and joining us.
46:44
Speaker 4: From A to Stars. I'm looking forward to seeing you
46:47
Speaker 4: at Dragon Con. I'll make sure to come by and
46:49
Speaker 4: say hello.
46:50
Speaker 2: Common thanks for inviting me on your show today.
46:53
Speaker 5: What an amazing career, right, I mean, what a privilege
46:56
Speaker 5: to be able to speak with her today. And and
46:58
Speaker 5: you know, I know that the stutudents listening to the show,
47:01
Speaker 5: particularly my students here at Columbus State, are going to
47:03
Speaker 5: find some very valuable pieces of advice in what she
47:06
Speaker 5: had to say about about just career and just career attitude,
47:10
Speaker 5: right and so so so good. And yeah, I'm sure
47:14
Speaker 5: that's going to be a fun panel up a dragon
47:17
Speaker 5: Con for you to be able to go to as well.
47:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I just love the fact that
47:21
Speaker 4: they have incorporated science. They've incorporated these space tracks as well.
47:27
Speaker 4: They even have a skeptics track. They have a wrestling
47:30
Speaker 4: night as well one night, And I just wonder if
47:32
Speaker 4: maybe they could get the science and the skeptics people
47:35
Speaker 4: in there too, you know, in the ring. I think
47:37
Speaker 4: that'd be a good.
47:39
Speaker 5: I think you should. I think you should try to
47:40
Speaker 5: facilitate that.
47:41
Speaker 4: I think it depends on what they're being skeptical of.
47:44
Speaker 4: I suppose maybe if they're skeptical of other things, maybe
47:47
Speaker 4: they could team up with the science people. But yeah, no,
47:51
Speaker 4: great chatting with her, great getting to know her and yeah,
47:55
Speaker 4: looking forward to seeing her up at Dragon Con. As
47:58
Speaker 4: far as folks enter did in what you guys do
48:01
Speaker 4: at the Coca Cola Space Science Center and you know,
48:05
Speaker 4: possibly career options for them, just you know, mentioned a
48:09
Speaker 4: couple of those things, and then how people can learn
48:11
Speaker 4: about the Space Science Center.
48:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, first of all, if you're listening to this podcast
48:17
Speaker 5: and you would like to explore careers in science, we
48:20
Speaker 5: have some great opportunities at Columbus State University. We have robotics, engineering,
48:25
Speaker 5: we have our Earth and Space Sciences which includes our
48:28
Speaker 5: Astrophysics track, and there are lots of pathways to great
48:33
Speaker 5: careers through Columbus State University. And one of the things
48:36
Speaker 5: that we try to do here at the Coca Cola
48:38
Speaker 5: Space Science Center is just inform people about those options
48:43
Speaker 5: while also trying to help them be inspired. Just inform
48:47
Speaker 5: them about those options while also helping them be inspired
48:50
Speaker 5: about pursuing their interests in space and space exploration. So yeah,
48:56
Speaker 5: we love to encourage that. If you want to know more,
48:59
Speaker 5: visit our web site. Our website is www dot cc
49:04
Speaker 5: SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
49:09
Speaker 4: Shan and I thank you for listening, and we will
49:11
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