Planetary Scientist Carolyn Porco on the media.

[longship]

Porco was interviewed by the New York Times in 1999:

“The reporter submits it to her editors and they come back and say, ‘Find out why Porco’s not married,'” Porco said in an audio clip posted by deGrasse Tyson. “I said to her, ‘See? I told you so. I knew this kind of thing was going to happen,’ because I knew they would be very sexist.”

Out of frustration, Porco explained, she offered reporter Carolyn Niethammer two possible responses.

“The first answer was something like, ‘Just tell them I have a different man every night and I like it that way,'” Porco said, drawing a laugh out of deGrasse Tyson. “And then the other answer was, ‘There are no high-maintenance items in my house of any kind — pets, plants, or husbands.'”

Porco said Niethammer ultimately chose to include the latter quote in her August 1999 feature.

“Actually, I got a lot of fan mail from that,” Porco said. “People writing me saying, ‘Oh, my 17-year-old daughter thought that was the greatest thing she ever heard.’ At my advanced age, there are still no high-maintenance items of any kind — pets, plants or husbands.”

This is from a recent interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson on his podcast, Star Talk. She is great, as always.

Here are links:
http://www.startalkradio.net/show/madame-saturn-a-conversation-with-carolyn-porco-part-1/
http://www.startalkradio.net/show/madame-saturn-a-conversation-with-carolyn-porco-part-2/

This is a woman who worked on the Voyager probe, was a lead scientist on the Cassini mission to Saturn, and a science advisor on the movie "Contact" and she is absolutely awesome.

Here is her standing ovation TED Talk on the Cassini Mission from 2007.

Enjoy people. And always celebrate women.


On edit: sorry for the fragmented updating. I had a much better composed narrative but whenever I went to Google to copy/paste, it emptied my post. iPads suck sometimes. A lot of times, actually. So you will have to suffer with this somewhat less cogent post.

[chervilant]

1. Most astonishing!

Her discourse, and those incredible pictures!

Think what our species could accomplish if our collective energies were devoted to exploration and discovery!

[longship]

2. And allowing women in the mix.

Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2015, 03:43 AM - Edit history (1)

I am a guy, but I learned feminism early in my life, in spite of being born in the 40's. Two sisters and a dominant mother helped, thank goodness. That my father was a former US Marine yet was one of the most gentlest and humorous souls that I ever knew, certainly helped my turn to the putatively dark side of feminism. He certainly would have agreed with me.

I think the celebration of women is something to behold. Regrettably, it is not enough. So I do as much as I can to promote it.

And Carolyn Porco is an astounding person by any measure.

My best to you.

[longship]

3. Self kick.

Just in case anybody is interested.