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Tom Spilker

Sept. 1970 - off to Florida Inst. of Tech., majoring in Spacecraft Technology, just as the Apollo program was being dismantled. Not wanting to starve in 1974, I transferred to Kansas State, majoring in Computer Science, later adding Geophysics. I worked summers in KC and earned a little at school playing guitar. Graduation 1975: off to Houston and the oil industry (and skydiving! Yeeha!). Despite finding a half-million barrel oil field in Texas, space flight’s lure was too strong, and Voyager 1 flying by Jupiter in 1979 spurred plans to go back to school. Stanford offered me a full-ride scholarship in an MS/PhD program in Electrical Engineering in 1981, so in Sept., off to California! The research group at Stanford used EE principles, especially radio physics, to study the planets, allowing me to work with the Voyager Project for the flybys of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Stanford was a wonderful education resource in many ways: in addition to the PhD I got my private pilot’s license, learned orbital mechanics and aerodynamics from the Aero/Astro department, and got four years of volleyball coaching from Fred Sturm, later the US men’s Olympic team head coach. Stanford didn’t even complain when all this extracurricular activity delayed my graduation date. Well, not too much, anyway. I met my first wife there and had a daughter, Amy, born in 1986. After graduating I did one postdoc there, then in 1991 another in radio astronomy and planetary studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hiring on full-time in 1993. After designing some unique interplanetary missions, I transferred to JPL’s Mission Architecture and Design section in 1994 and have been there most of the time since, except for 1-1/2 years as the Mission Planning Chief for the Cassini Saturn Orbiter mission. In 1996 Linda and I met, working on an advanced planning task for NASA Headquarters. She has two daughters, Jennifer and Jessica (born 1982 & 85, resp.), from her previous marriage. We married March 1, 1997, and honeymooned in New Zealand, such a delight we went back for our fifth anniversary. Empty nesters since 2009! Since 2000 I’ve worked a lot with the National Academy of Science, helping to plan NASA’s program of planetary science and associated missions, with lots of travel in the US and Europe. In 2010 Linda was named the Project Scientist for the aforementioned Cassini mission. Amy’s daughters Lizzy born July 29, 2009, Kate born Nov. 14, 2011!

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