Dr Ed Stone, former director of JPL, Voyager project scientist, dies at 88 Edward C Stone, the project scientist for NASA's Voyager mission from 1972 to 2022, has died. Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone on stage for New Horizons Event Dr. Ed Stone speaks on a panel at a New Horizons event in 2014 – credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani Born in Knoxville, Iowa, in 1936, Stone studied physics at Burlington …
What's most striking is Stone's individual versatility. It's where real breakthroughs in science come from, but it seems we've stopped cultivating or valuing it in an age of increasing specialisation where often papers with extremely narrow subject matter can have dozens or more authors.
Isaac Asimov wrote 'Sucker Bait' decades ago, a story about the dangers of increasing specialisation in science.
However, there are reasons beyond just the cultural / systematic for this specialisation, not least of which is that we know more about everything. There's punctuated equilibrium. The low-hanging fruit has been taken. And then there is the question of how we perceived and define 'progress' ( a human construction, the universe doesn't care).
We shouldn't sniff either at science problems which are successfully tackled by large teams, and remember that culturally we're conditioned to celebrate the achievements of individuals (Nobel prizes are only awarded to individuals or partnerships, for example).
> What about all the other scientists who contributed to voyager who have passed away getitng a mention ?
It's a fair point but I rather think you're railing against the wind here. I've give you an anecdote as compensation. :-)
About 10 years ago now I was in a charity shop (thrift store) near Aldershot, in the UK. Aldershot is near Farnborough and Farnborough was the home of the UK's Defence Research Establishment. I was wearing, by chance, a Lowell Observatory sweatshirt which got me into a conversation with the elderly lady volunteer running the shop.
Long story short, she had worked for the DRE most of her life and, many many years earlier as a very junior technician, once spent thousands of hours testing resistors on a Wheatstone Bridge (in fact 3 of them - she said she wore out 3 Wheatstone Bridges) to calibrate them exactly. These were to be used in the build of the UK's instrument package on the Voyager probes. So part of the reason for Voyager's extreme longevity was the requirement for the very highest quality components and the dedicated testing of them from people like her.
There were some other interesting stories as well, perhaps for another time. Not least that airframe analysis of the de Havilland Comet by DRE showed potential issues but they were ignored and De Havilland went ahead with their design anyway. The disastrous crashes that followed are well documented elsewhere. The boffins were sufficiently concerned at being ignored that someone used a personal connection and tipped-off the author Nevil Shute who wrote "No Highway" as a result. Alas the book's warning was still ignored.
Which brings us back to the the comment I'm replying to: if the world didn't insist on the cult of the "leader" and found ways for individuals to raise concerns (without the system being abused by tin-hatters) then those Comet victims might not have died.
(All unverified, of course, but I had no reason to doubt her.)
AC It's a fair point but I rather think you're railing against the wind here.
cow: Yes i know i am because to many americans and others have been brainwashed into "admiring" people with fake corporate title like directory or ceo and forgetting WHO really are the heros the people with real titles like scientist.
AC Which brings us back to the the comment I'm replying to: if the world didn't insist on the cult of the "leader" and found ways for individuals to raise concerns (without the system being abused by tin-hatters) then those Comet victims might not have died.
cow: Exactly cults and cult leaders have been one of the great negatives that have hurt billions today and countless others in the past.
Look at all the dictatorships in the world, in Russia we have another exampel of cult leaders where pathetic amounts of praise are given to the "leader" which he of course has not earned and they are destroying, killing both themselves and innocent ukrainians.
The world would be a completely different and better place without all celebrities and leaders.
> What about all the other scientists who contributed to voyager who have passed away getitng a mention ?
Those scientists will have been glad that Voyager was a success, and grateful to Dr Stone for successfully managing it. I doubt they or Dr Stone were motivated by dreams of fame or fortune. Most great human achievements, like Voyager, can only be accomplished as a part of a team.
Whatever methodologies he used for managing these teams, it worked. Even if the teams largely managed themselves, that's still a positive testament to whoever initially chose the team members and then left them to get on with it.
The unsung scientists of which you speak evidently respected the man, so why don't you?
I had the pleasure of introducing Ed Stone at an Australian Space Development Conference in the 90’s.
He was a quiet, charismatic man who was one of the best presenters I have ever seen. He was polite and friendly, and pointedly talked about the teams he worked with, never about himself. He made you feel that he was talking directly to you. I must admit I was in awe of him at the time. I am sad to hear he has gone.
dave: hose scientists will have been glad that Voyager was a success, and grateful to Dr Stone for successfully managing it. I doubt they or Dr Stone were motivated by dreams of fame or fortune. Most great human achievements, like Voyager, can only be accomplished as a part of a team.
cow:
Im not discussing the motivation of Dr Stone or any of his fellow scientists. I am however questioning the decision by the media to ONLY acknowledge DR STONE because he has a TITLE of DIRECTOR.
You are completely confused i have never discussed or questioned the mental or any other integrity or motivation because i think i can confidently say scientists are always in it for the beauty of truth.
dave: The unsung scientists of which you speak evidently respected the man, so why don't you?
cow:
Wow how blind and brainwashed you are.
I am respecting DR STONE and i am also asking that his fellow scientists without the title also be honoured for the same reasons.
Its sad how blind you are that you cant see the double standards of only honouring people because they have a worthless title and how all the others with real credentials and titles like scientist are ignored and never give the same respect and acknowledgement.
Go read the title and article, they place DIRECTOR before SCIENTIST for a reason.
Now apologise you horrible person for being blind to this american problem.
Dr Ed Stone, former director of JPL, Voyager project scientist, dies at 88
dave: You are the one who is not respecting him... because his value is as a scientist not as a director. You dont realise that your blindness is also the reason all the other scientists on the team are not respected or acknowledged. This same stupidity is why ceos who contribute nothing but bullshit and theft are frequently parised and acknowledged but real contributors to humanity like the remaining voyager team are not.
You may as well ask why Elon Musk gets all the press and glory every time one of his rockets flies or why General Eisenhower got all the accolades on D-Day and not the grunts who bled and died on the beach.
All of these projects are team efforts and there are people at the top leading them. Some are more deserving of accolades than others, I suppose.
A story about a "grunt."
My partner's father was an electrical engineer, specializing in things like thermistors (temperature sensitive resistors). The smallish company he worked at was contracted by NASA to supply said thermistors for the Apollo spacecraft (I'm not sure which part -- but I suspect the command module) and it was his job to design the component to the specs provided.
My partner tells me that her father sweated and chewed his nails during every Apollo flight, from launch to splashdown, worrying that he'd made some mistake that would jeapordize the mission.
When he passed away a number of years ago, there were no headlines or obits in all the tech journals. He was just a person doing a job to the best of his ability alongside thousands of others, each making a contribution to the whole.
But I'd like to think he smiled and hoisted a pint at the completion of every Apollo flight, even Apollo 11, knowing that his part did its job in getting the astronauts there and back.
Perhaps that's enough.
You be the judge.
Nobody sees a Spielberg movie poster and assumes that Stephen is doing it all himself. We know that hundreds of individuals will have been involved. We know that to list them all on the movie credits takes about ten minutes accompanied by another orchestral movement or two by John Williams.
Congratulations, you've just won the coveted "Worst Whataboutery of the Year" award! I know the year isn't over, it's an election year, and there's strong competition from commenters on the topics of Ukraine and Israel, but it takes a special someone to "what about" a scientist's obituary in that fashion, so I'm just delivering the award now.
Than probes that are mostly working after so many, I was about to say years, but lets just say light hours away instead.
Voyager 1: 22 hours, 34 minutes and 47.1978 seconds
Voyager 2: 18 hours, 51 minutes and 45.4800 seconds
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