Trina L. Ray is now retired from NASA after 36 years working on space exploration. She started on the Voyager Project for its last great encounter (Neptune), served decades on Cassini in various roles (Science Planning and Sequencing Deputy, Titan Orbiter Science Team Co-Chair), and finally helped Europa Clipper get launched in 2024, serving as the Investigation Scientist for REASON, the ice-penetrating RADAR experiment, and the Deputy Science Manager.
Daily Dragon (DD): Trina, I have a lot of questions about your years at NASA. Before get to that, though, let’s start farther back. When did you know you wanted to work for NASA?
Trina L. Ray (TLR): The first glimmer was before high school. I was a big Star Trek (and Star Wars, and DC comics, and Lynda Carter Wonder Woman, and, and…) fan. The actors of the Star Trek TV show went to visit a real space shuttle, which was being named “Enterprise” after the ship in the show, and I thought that was so cool. Then Sally Ride went into space as an astronaut. I was taking and loving high school science classes at the time, so that was influential. Finally, in college, I was looking for a summer internship in the Los Angeles area, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was on the list. I ended up there, and my fate was sealed!
DD: What was your first job with them, and what path did you take to find it?
TLR: I was in college, and the career counselor told us we should consider a summer internship program, so I went down to the office and filled out (by hand) the paperwork. One of the options was JPL, and it just so happened that I went to a local astronomy club and met someone who worked at JPL. They knew someone who needed someone and asked me to submit a resume. I had good grades and my senior project advisor gave a good letter of recommendation, and within a few days I was hired as an Academic Part-time Employee at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Voyager Project for the Neptune Encounter (1989). I usually tell young people that it was “luck” in the sense of opportunity meets preparedness… That’s one of the neatest definitions of luck I’ve come across.
DD: Your entry on the NASA website says working on the Voyager project was a formative experience in setting your expectations for other projects. Would you elaborate on that?
TLR: The Voyager mission began back in the ’70s—Voyager 2 launched August 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched September 5. So this DragonCon is the beginning of their 50th year in space (I have a panel on Monday at 1pm over on the Space Track all about the mission.) Both were planned to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, and then Voyager 2 went on to Uranus and Neptune, which was about the time I joined (in 1989). By that time, the team had been working together for decades. The lines of communication were crystal clear, the processes well ironed out, everyone knew everyone, and it was a smooth operating team. That was the result of all the time together and all troubles and triumphs worked through as a team… But I didn’t know that. This was just my first job and I was WOWed, to say the least. Soaking up that experience has influenced all the NASA teams I’ve been on since, and I’ve tried to take the Voyager esprit de corps to all the others.
DD: You co-authored an article on the Cassini-Huygens mission to study Saturn and its moons. Was there anything about that mission that surprised you?
TLR: Jumping off your last question…when I joined Cassini it was in the development stage (building and assembling the spacecraft before launch), and to me it seemed like chaos. No one knew what we were going to do—specifically; no one knew who to ask. Coming from Voyager, it was a shock, and I was very surprised. But of course, that’s just the nature of things. When you first start or join a team, it seems like chaos, but good people and good intentions and someone with experience providing a guiding light helps it all come together.
Of course there were stunning science surprises. The Enceladus plumes, the volatile cycling of methane on Titan (with methane clouds, rain, rivers, and seas), and really exploring the rings of Saturn in detail all had surprises of varying degrees.
DD: What do you consider the most significant discovery from this mission?
TLR: I think it’s a close call between discovering the plumes of Enceladus and revealing the largest piece of unexplored territory in the solar system at the time (the surface of Titan) to be a complex world of volatile cycling of methane where the atmosphere, the surface, and the interior all interact.
I can go on here, let me know if you want more…
DD: What are some of the biggest challenges involved in setting up missions like Cassini and Voyager?
These missions (outer solar system missions) are VERY long (a decade to plan, another to build, and then hopefully one to two decades to execute). They are made up of a VERY large teams consisting of hundreds of scientists (thousands of grad students and post-docs and summer interns over the years), hundreds of folks operating the spacecraft over the years, thousands who helped design and build it. The Voyager spacecraft are one of the great achievements of the century and NASA’s first 100 years. Voyager will go down in the history books as likely the greatest planetary mission of all time, not only for its scientific discoveries (taking all the outer planets from dots of light that astronomers studied to worlds that planetary geologists and atmospheric dynamists study) as well as the first spacecraft to leave the solar system and sample interstellar space. That only happens once in the history of a species, and it happened while we were watching and working and marveling at the sorts of hard things people can do if we try.
DD: Is there an aspect of such setups that you particularly enjoy tackling?
TLR: I love setting up the process and procedures that the scientists will use to make decisions. It’s puzzle solving all day and you’re working with some of the smartest people on the planet…and the coin of the realm is science, not who’s the loudest, or who has the most money…I love it!
DD: Please tell us more about REASON and your duties on that project.
REASON is a multi-frequency ice-penetrating radar system that will be flown on the Europa Clipper Mission. I was the Investigation Scientist for the instrument during development, through launch, and the first year of operations, where we successfully demonstrated the instrument worked at Mars. We couldn’t exactly do that before launch because the instrument is huge (59-foot poles off each side of the solar arrays, and the solar arrays themselves are the size of a basketball court). This is an instrument that we are flying to the outer solar system and by an icy satellite for the first time.
We have had cameras (not as good as Clipper’s cameras) and magnetometers and spectral imagers before. None of them were as good as what Clipper is taking, but the ice-penetrating radar is a first. Being able to penetrate into the ice every flyby and learn how thick the shell is around the moon to help us understand the extent of the ocean below—how exciting.
The investigation scientist champions REASON science goals to the project at large as the primary interface between JPL Project Science System and the 20-plus-member international instrument science team. In development, a lot of that work is wrapped up in requirements development and assessment. In particular, working with the amazing tour designers to help craft a set of multi-year trajectories that maximize science opportunities within engineering constraints.
DD: As you look back on 36 years of space exploration, what were some of the highlights?
TLR: The night of the Voyager flyby of Neptune. Every image that came down was the best image of Neptune ever taken. All the scientists at the lab, all the press folks covering the event at the lab, personal heroes like Carl Sagan—wandering around and running into them on the steps outside the operations building while Chuck Berry is playing Johnny Be Good live for the Voyager party (his song was one of the songs chosen to be on the Voyager record). My mother suggested I write a journal, and I was “too busy.” I really regret that decision. I would treasure that journal if I had it now.
The evening of the first close flyby of Titan just after Saturn Orbit Insertion, again all the scientists were at the lab in a room watching the data coming back in real time. The smartest, most knowledgeable folks on Titan in the world gasping in awe. Still to this day my favorite image is the one we took that night even though over the years we took better ones.
The Europa Clipper launch. I hadn’t been able to make the Cassini launch (was working operations back at JPL) and I desperately missed seeing that. Being able to experience Europa Clipper launch, the roar of the rocket, the path as it took off…I treasure that memory.
DD: Is there anything you took away with you that you wish you’d known going in?
TLR: I wish I had known how unique the experience was going to be and been more diligent in writing a journal. You don’t think you’re part of history until you are…and then it’s too late.
Also, the joy and expertise of learning to work together in teams. I’ve taken those lessons with me outside of JPL to things I do with my friends, my family, and my hobbies. I didn’t appreciate how important it was to be good at working in teams when I was younger.
DD: What is TLR Consulting?
TLR: I retired from JPL after a wonderful 36 years and decided to start a consulting business to take on small projects and reviews to make sure that my years of experience in science operations could still be used by NASA, academia, or industry for the advancement of planetary science (seems like an awful waste of accumulated talent to not use it). Also, I was an award-winning public speaker for NASA, invited to give talks around the world to groups large and small, telling the story of science. TLR Consulting allows me to continue to do that.
DD: What’s the best part of retirement?
TLR: Not sure yet… I’m just getting used to being the master of my schedule with nothing imposed on me from the outside. I’ve had that all my life; parents, school, work were all the drivers of my schedule since I can remember. It’s a different world to create the daily and weekly schedule with no dominant driver. It’s also nice not to have to ask permission to do something work related. I used to ask if I could go to a professional meeting, like the Humans to Titan meeting recently or the Division of Planetary Science annual meeting, and there was a discussion about whether I was presenting or just attending. Now it’s more like, I think this is a good idea to go and I can just do that. Of course, being a gig worker has a lot of uncertainty, which is a new thing for me, as well, which isn’t the most comfortable of things. I’m figuring it out though.
DD: What’s next for you?
TLR: A little of this, a little of that—getting my consulting firm up and running, getting my professional social media and networking areas updated, including getting a website to communicate and share information. Doing the work I’ve been hired to do so far. I’ve recently participated in Kevin DeBruin’s Waterworld program with kids in Oxnard, CA. He has a network of professional science communicators, scientists, and engineers who teach and interact with kids for three weeks. I talked about Europa (a water world that has an icy ocean with more water than all of the oceans of the Earth combined under its icy shell). On another front, I joined Sirius Travel again as a professional astronomical guide for their total solar eclipse tour in Spain just a few weeks ago…and we’ll see what comes next
DD: For more information about Trina and her work, visit her website, https://www.trinalray.com/, check out her LinkedIn site, https://www.linkedin.com/in/trina-l-ray/, or email her at (TrinaLRayConsulting@gmail.com) TrinaLRayConsulting (at) gmail (dot) com
Thank you!
