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Carolyn Porco

The University of Arizona astronomer likens her role with the Cassini project to parenting.

Unraveling the mysteries of Saturn will occupy a large part of the life of University of Arizona planetary scientist Carolyn Porco over the next decade.

MITCH TOBIN
Citizen Staff Writer
Jan. 19, 2001

Q & A WITH CAROLYN PORCO
Many astronomers gravitate to their profession, beginning with a childhood spent marveling at the stars and fiddling with telescopes.
University of Arizona planetary scientist Carolyn Porco took a different path.
She was raised in the Bronx by working-class Italian immigrants. As a teen-ager she was fascinated by Eastern philosophy and religion, she said.
"I wasn't a tinkerer. I was a thinker... a seeker," she said recently.
She spoke while taking a break from analyzing fresh images of Jupiter's maelstroms.
The objectivity of science also excited the young Porco, and her interest in things spiritual eventually led to her long career exploring the extraterrestrial.
For the past 17 years, UA has gone along for the ride.
"I've always been very adventurous," said Porco, 47. "As a young woman, I had a tremendous wanderlust. And I don't think that's inconsistent with the route in life I've chosen, being an explorer."
Porco is continuing a decades-old legacy in Tucson of investigating the solar system.
That tradition includes Tom Gehrels' work with the Pioneer probe, Bradford Smith's involvement with the Voyager missions and Mike Belton's ongoing role in the Galileo craft's observations of Jupiter.
After earning her doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1983, Porco joined UA's faculty.
She helped the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California plan Voyager II's encounters with Uranus and Neptune.
Porco, an expert in planetary ring systems, now directs the imaging team for the Cassini probe, which is wrapping up an elaborate photo shoot of Jupiter.
In 2004, the school-bus-sized craft will arrive near Saturn, and, if all goes as planned, will spend at least four years studying the ringed planet and its icy moons.
It will be the closest look ever at the planetary system and could help answer questions about the origin of the solar system and life on Earth, scientists say.
"Carolyn is an extremely talented person operating within a sea of extremely talented people here," said Michael Drake, head of UA's planetary sciences department.
"She's an extremely effective communicator, and she does a good job of explaining planetary sciences to the public," he said.
Porco likens her involvement in the Cassini project to parenting. By the time the $3 billion probe reaches Saturn, she will have spent 14 years working on the project.
"It's like having and raising a child to adulthood and enjoying all that comes along with that. And putting up with all the frustration that comes with that, too," she said.
She recalls watching the spacecraft lift off from Cape Canaveral in 1997, execute a graceful arc across the sky and then disappear forever.
"That's what got me - the thing just left, and it never came back," she said.
Besides the engineering challenges, Cassini's launch was plagued by political controversy because of Cassini's fuel source: 72 pounds of potentially toxic plutonium. Activists feared that thousands would die if the rocket exploded as it rose, or if it burned up in Earth's atmosphere while looping around our planet in 1999 to pick up speed for its journey to Saturn.
Porco, who dismisses the plutonium fears as "hype," testified on Capitol Hill about the project's value and promoted the mission on op-ed pages and television.
It wasn't the last time that Porco's work ruffled feathers.
After the 1997 death of Eugene Shoemaker, her professor at Cal Tech, Porco led an effort to send the renowned geologist's ashes to the moon with the Lunar Prospector.
Shoemaker, who helped train the Apollo astronauts, had dreamed of going into outer space himself.
But Porco's plan sparked the ire of some Native Americans, including the president of the Navajo Nation, who complained that the tribute would defile the moon. Eventually the tribute was approved, and in 1998 Shoemaker's ashes became the first human remains to be deposited on the moon.
Politics also is an inescapable part of Porco's interest in exploring the solar system because the endeavor is so dependent on the largess of the federal government.
Although some critics of the space program think the spending is wasteful and should be redirected toward solving problems on our home planet, Porco thinks humans are on an inevitable trek toward colonizing other planets.
"It's in us; it's part of our genetic makeup. Dogs don't seem to do it, giraffes don't do it, fish don't do it . . . but humans do. It's what we're made of," she said.
"We explore because exploring must convey an evolutionary advantage to us. You have to prevent us from doing it."
UA planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine, who attended Cal Tech with Porco, noted that in a discipline still dominated by men, Porco is rarity.
Lunine said Porco has been a shining role model for many young women.
She downplays her gender and demonstrates that it's not obligatory for young women to carry the mantle of female scientists, he said.
"She's not self-conscious about it. She's not enthusiastic about creating a persona of being the woman scientist with a capital W," Lunine said.
"Science is a process of trying to understand how the universe works, and as a scientist, one's energy really has to be focused on that effort," he added.
Porco would rather not talk about the subject.
"Whenever I'm asked this question, I'm reminded of Colin Powell's comments when asked what it was like to be black in a white man's world," she said.
"He said, 'You have forced me to play on this little corner of the playing field. But that's OK with me, because I'm going to play my game, I'm going to play it well, and I'm going to beat you anyway.' "
Porco expects UA to continue playing a lead role in the exploration of the outer reaches of our solar system.
Scientists' main challenge will be to devise better ways to propel spacecraft out of orbit and through space.
Instead of using chemical combustion, new designs might use "solar sails" that catch photons emitted by the sun.
Researchers also hope to develop more-sophisticated cameras and instruments that can process data on-board and conserve precious computer resources on the spacecraft.
In the meantime, Porco plans to spend the next decade or so focusing on the reams of data on Saturn that Cassini transmits back to Earth.
She also hopes to develop an IMAX film about the mission.
"I enjoy my career because it allows me to live my life on a plane different than most people do. My mental life is spent elsewhere - it's spent in the outer solar system. I can think of no more enjoyable life to spend than that."