My Voyager experiences shaped my life in other ways too. In particular, the spacing of the flybys affected the timing of the births of my children. I tell my daughters — Jennifer and Jessica — that their births were based on the alignment of the planets, and I mean that! They were born in a five-year window between the Voyager Saturn flyby in 1981 and the Uranus flyby in 1986. Other Voyager moms, including my good friends Candy Hansen and Sue Linick, started their families during this time as well. Our children literally grew up together! We each were experiment reps for Voyager instruments on the scan platform: Imaging Science Subsystem (Candy), and Ultraviolet Spectrometer (Sue). Bob Nelson was the fourth scan platform experiment rep (Photopolarimeter). All four of us are shown in the picture above. Our heads are carefully placed in the positions of our instruments on the Voyager scan platform.



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