Sabbatical To Saturn
Dr. Heidi Manning is deeply committed to Concordia College, Moorhead, but her focus is about two billion miles from campus. She's monitoring the progress of the Cassini Mission spacecraft to Saturn, a project she worked on during her days at NASA.
After a seven-year, 2.2 billion mile trip from Earth, Cassini reached Saturn in June 2004 and is now in orbit, collecting data. And this is just what Manning has been waiting for.
Manning, who worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland from 1995 to 1997, tested and calibrated Cassini's Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometers. The two instruments are used to collect data about Saturn's atmosphere and Titan, one of Saturn's moons. NASA scientists believe this data will shed light on how each of the planets was formed.
Manning brings a galaxy of experience to the classroom and her joint research projects with physics students.
"I want to inspire and educate the next generation of scientists," Manning says. "I like to explain science concepts to non-scientists and instill in them some excitement about space exploration."
