Bigfork's new neighbor's career was out of this world

The Voyager 1 spacecraft became the first man-made object to leave our solar system in February. At about 18 billion miles away, the Voyager 1 is just one of the many projects Bigfork’s new full-time resident, Carol DiNolfo, can add to her list of proud accomplishments.

DiNolfo was a system engineer for spacecraft communications in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1980 until 2002. Her job was to check all the incoming data from the spacecrafts and ensure communication wasn’t lost.

“Spaceship language isn’t English, it’s numbers, so I had to check all of that,” DiNolfo said.

As project manager for NASA’s ground data systems, DiNolfo was one of the first people to ever see close up images of other planets and their moons. Digital photography was developed for these programs, and line by line the images would download from deep space. DiNolfo and her team were the first to see these images from space.

“Seeing those pictures, all of those sci-fi dreams are becoming real right before your eyes,” DiNolfo said. “One of the most incredible moons (of Jupiter), Io, has volcanoes on it and we got an image of it erupting. It took your breath away to see something like that.”

In addition to gaining understanding on an interplanetary level, DiNolfo and her team fostered some international understanding as well by working alongside Chinese and Russian scientists.

Each country had its own space program with a common goal, to understand where everything came from, how it all began, and to see what’s out in the final frontier.

Spy satellites were no secret, and there was a mutual understanding that no country would interfere with another’s research. So, during the crucial first 24 hours of launch, spy satellites would be moved so as not to interfere with new spacecrafts.

“At that time, Russia and China were ‘enemies,’ but there were no boundaries in sharing,” DiNolfo said. “We knew that the more we worked together, the better our chances were for finding the answers. We discovered that people are people, same desires for love, family and friendship. We’re all basically alike.”

Although boarders were essentially broken down in the name of science, there were some restrictions on how freely information could be shared between countries. Information had to be at least two years old before it could be shared with other countries.

DiNolfo had a paper published in the mid 1980s on the Voyager array of antennas and how to pick up weak signals from deep space that a Chinese professor wanted to see. However, regulations prevented sharing this information immediately.

Exactly two years after her paper was published, she received an email from the same professor wanting to read her work. In exchange, he sent her a canister of Chinese tea.

Budget cuts in the 1990s led DiNolfo to change careers in 2002 to work in a nuclear power plant’s control room.

“Watching that decline was just so depressing for me that it’s the main reason I left,” DiNolfo said. “It’s sad because from what we’ve seen is the only way the U.S. stays ahead is because of our ability to innovate. My personal opinion is our economic problems are from not innovating.”

DiNolfo credited NASA research and development for technology ranging from memory foam mattresses to the microchips that make modern computers and cell phones more powerful than the original computers that used to fill entire rooms.

Her journey to Bigfork spans two decades, starting in the 1980s when Sunset Magazine had an article about artistic communities that rated Bigfork as one of the top in the nation.

As a musician and photographer, DiNolfo was intrigued. She was a vocalist in Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s big band, Big Band Theory, made up entirely of scientists and engineers.

“We used to joke that we might not be the best sounding band, but without a doubt we were the smartest band on the planet,” DiNolfo said. “Actually, we were a pretty talented bunch of musicians.”

After reading that article, DiNolfo contacted Bigfork’s chamber of commerce and got as much information about the community as she could and added it to her “bucket list.”

“I had Bigfork on my mind for 20 years, that I was going to get here one day,” DiNolfo said.

DiNolfo first came to Bigfork in 2007 and purchased a summer home in 2008. She became a full-time resident about seven months ago and currently works online from her home in Bigfork for a nuclear power plant in California.

She recently got involved with Bigfork Rotary and is considering trying out for one of the upcoming plays.

“Who knows from there, I’m having fun,” DiNolfo said.