Author Linda Voss.

Writers love metaphor, which is why I like to think of myself, professionally, as a soap molecule. Soap molecules work because they are hydrophilic (attracted to water) on one side and attracted to oil on the other and are, therefore, able to make oil and water mix. So I, on the one hand, am attracted to metaphor, creativity, the humanities. On the other hand, I love the sciences. At NASA I have enjoyed working as a writer among engineers. In my science writing in general, I get a lot of satisfaction from facilitating communication between scientific folk and the general public or other scientific folk not expert in the same area. I like being a bridge between the sciences and the humanities.

I’m rather a dilettante in the sciences, not able to settle down on any particular one as my favorite. At Indiana University, where I majored in journalism with a science minor, I took honors organic and inorganic chemistry, but loved my genetics course. On the student paper, I carved out a science beat for myself (before majors in “science writing” existed) and got to report on the first recombinant DNA lab built at the university in 1976. Fortunately, as a writer I don’t have to pick: I can continue exploring across a range of disciplines.

However, one science did become a family focus. You can imagine dinnertime conversations in a family with two PhD physicists–my father and my older sister Janice. When my sister became an astronaut, the scientific disciplines of “aero and astro” (aeronautics and astrophysics or aerospace) took on a personal interest. Because of Janice’s career, I had front-and-center seats to four space shuttle launches and an inside track on lots of space science. I’ve had VIP seats to the maiden launches of the Pegasus and Antares rockets and the launch of a Cygnus spacecraft with my sister’s name on it to the International Space Station. I’ve written about these events for Discovery Channel publishing, Macmillan publishing, Florida Today, Aerospace America, and Ad Astra magazine.