On August 14th? I was…I was in Tempe, AZ, glued to the television while Voyager flew by Neptune.
Hard to believe that was twenty years ago!
Where were you in ’89?
Published by Nancy E. Shaffer
NANCY E. SHAFFER has been an experimental psychologist (M.A., Cognitive Psychology, Rice University), a philosopher (Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Davis), and software developer. She taught history and philosophy of science at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her philosophical work has appeared in the journal Philosophy of Science and her pop-culture philosophy website, All Things Philosophical on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. Dis/inhbition is her first novel. She currently resides in Tempe, Arizona. View all posts by Nancy E. Shaffer
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 
Uh. I was sitting around sweating in my in-laws’ apartment in Italy, wishing we could afford a vacation, looking forward to my first wedding anniversary just over a month away. And, I’m pretty sure, entirely unaware of the Voyager, not a thought spared for Neptune.
And why should have? If I’d had a life at a time, I probably would have skipped that half-gallon of ice cream I was eating while watching the Neptune fly-by.
Well, from a big-picture perspective, it would have been better to have some awareness of what was going on in the world at large… (or the universe, I guess).
very hard to believe
and I had just gotten to Cleveland to begin medical school
I just thought it was kinda cool.
Awareness of the world around you is overrated.
It was my first year of my Master’s program. The latest one, anyway.
; D
I know I was here in Vancouver, but exactly where I was and what I was doing is a mystery to me now.
But I do remember the event!
I went to Johns Hopkins. 1989-90 was a very interesting year there. The Applied Physics Lab monitored some of the instruments and shared a lot of the video with the students. We piled into Shriver Hall, and for over an hour, on the big screen, was video of Triton. Not pictures, actual video. Now it would be on the NASA channel, but back then it was wicked to get to see the video.
We were also tied to the Hubble. I can remember the big sign on Shriver celebrating the launch of the telescope. Then it didn’t go up and the sign came down. This happened so often, we doubted it would ever go up.
Sounds cool.
It’s strange that I remember that so vividly. My mom keeps insisting I went on a trip to Pennsylvania with her and my brother eight years later, and I have little or no memory of that.