WENDY WHITING DOLCI

Currently, I am a project manager for airborne science missions at NASA Ames. I work with the airplanes that NASA uses for research in Earth Science and Astronomy.

I came to work at NASA Ames in 1987, and for many years flew on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a C-141 aircraft with a telescope onboard. After the KAO was grounded in 1995, I flew on the DC-8 research aircraft as a mission manager. The DC-8 is used for all sorts of Earth Science missions, including the study of rainforests, deserts, volcanoes, pollution, and weather - quite a diverse list!

Over the last few years, I have participated in some truly interesting Earth Science missions. One of them was called the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, which was conducted at Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of Marshall Islands. We had three aircraft out at Kwajalein, plus a NOAA ship and alot of ground-based instruments for measuring rainfall and the weather. I spent three weeks at Kwajalein in the summer of 1999.

In January of 2000, I traveled to Sweden for the SOLVE mission. The purpose of SOLVE was to study the ozone loss in Earth's polar atmosphere. The NASA ER-2 and DC-8 aircraft were both sent to Sweden for this mission. SOLVE was one of a series of ozone-loss missions, in which scientists are striving to understand what is causing the Antarctic ozone hole, and the depletion of ozone in the Arctic. These missions are extremely important, as our ozone layer protects us from harmful UV radiation from the sun, and it is crucial that we understand the cause of ozone loss and what can be done to stop it.

Another project I'm now involved in is called SOFIA, which will be a bigger and better version of the KAO. SOFIA stands for "Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy", but that's such a long name, it's easier to just call her SOFIA. SOFIA is a Boeing 747 aircraft, which we are modifying to carry a large telescope. We hope SOFIA will begin its science flights out of NASA Ames in the year 2002. The main reason for putting a telescope in an airplane is so that we can do a special type of astronomy, called "infrared" astronomy. Because infrared radiation is absorbed by water vapor in the earth's atmosphere, to see it you have to get above the troposphere, which contains most of the water vapor. Luckily, we can fly above the troposphere quite easily. At middle latitudes (such as the Bay area), the troposphere is almost always below 40,000 ft., an altitude that is easily obtainable by a large plane like the Boeing 747.

Through my career in airborne science at NASA, I have had the chance to work side-by-side with some of the world's top scientists, and to travel to exotic locations around the world. At times, the things we do, and the places we go seem almost unbelievable. I remember back in 1993, explaining to my friends why I was going all the way to Chile, in South America, to study Triton, one of the moons of Neptune!! Triton was going to pass in front of a star, a phenomenon that we call a stellar occultation. Our goal was to put the airborne telescope within the very small shadow cast by Triton on the surface of the Earth - in the same way we want to be in the shadow path of a solar eclipse to study the sun.

I live in Mountain View with my husband, Bob, and two cats. Bob also works at NASA Ames, as Chief of the Facilities and Logistics Division. I'm an avid reader, and have been since I was a little girl. I belong to a book discussion group, which I founded, and which is still going strong after 11 years. I like to stay in shape and enjoy biking, walking and hiking. I'm a regular at the gym here at Ames. I'm also interested in graphic design, and am taking classes during the evenings and weekends to learn more, and to encourage my creative "right brain" to stay active! I think it's important to maintain a balance in life: that we can be both analytical and artistic, for example. We can be mission managers, or scientists, or engineers, and still love to cook! This is the very best thing about being a woman in this day and age - we can be anything we want to be.