Edward Carroll Stone (1936-2024)

[Orionid]

Dr. Edward C. Stone (23.01.1936-09.06.2024)

Ed Stone, JPL director and top scientist on Voyager mission, dies at 88
By Deborah Netburn and Corinne Purtill June 11, 2024 6:20 PM PT


Ed Stone, who led JPL for a decade and worked on the La Cañada Flintridge institution’s Voyager mission for five decades, has died. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

(...) A physicist who got in on the ground floor of space exploration, Stone played a leading role in NASA missions to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The discoveries made under his watch revolutionized scientists’ understanding of the solar system and fueled humanity’s ambition to explore distant worlds. (...)

He took it anyway, and from the mission’s first encounter with Jupiter in 1979 to its final flyby of Neptune in 1989, Stone became the scientific face of the Voyager mission. He guided the science agenda and helped the public make sense of revolutionary images and data not just from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, but from many of their fascinating moons. (...)
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-adv-ed-stone-obit-20180204-story.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone

[Orionid]

https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1800625056017695086
https://twitter.com/hbhammel/status/1800569514482155695

RIP Ed Stone, long-time leader of the Voyager mission. I learned so much from him during the Neptune encounter: both how to maximize science and how to share science with the world. He was also a genuinely nice person.  Sincere condolences to Ed's family and close friends.

https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/1800626043092631597

Ed Stone was a trailblazer who dared mighty things in space. He was a dear friend to all who knew him, and a cherished mentor to me personally. Ed took humanity on a planetary tour of our solar system and beyond, sending NASA where no spacecraft had gone before.
His legacy has left a tremendous and profound impact on NASA, heliophysics, the scientific community, and the world. My condolences to his family and everyone who loved him.
Thank you, Ed, for everything.

https://x.com/NASAScienceAA/status/1800647690973233425

Very sad day as we learn of Mr Voyager and former @NASAJPL director Ed Stone. There are few ppl in my career I owe more to than Ed and fewer I have admired more.
Here is an Ed story: my first meeting as a postdoc, I sit at a dinner table and he pulls up and asks “is this free”. And he sits down and wants to get to know me - he is the most senior person in the meeting, I am the most junior, still learning English...  He asks about science and about be, and he keeps doing this every meeting. Over time, he makes sure I become a CoI on his mission; the Advanced Composition Explorer, my first CoI role ever. And he gives me feedback and good ideas throughout, even when I was at NASA.

Ed story 2: We also did some press conferences together and once I tried to naively embellish an idea ever so slightly. It was one of my first press conferences. He immediately cuts me off and he says “the data do not show that”. I tried to explain noticing suddenly that I was pushing too much and he repeats “the data do not show that”. I have never forgotten that lesson: it is important to explain science, but true scientists never go beyond the line of that the data show.
Rest in peace, dear Ed! Your lessons and missions live on!

https://x.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1800615554522206289

Ed Stone, Former Director of JPL and Voyager Project Scientist, Dies
June 11, 2024

Edward C. Stone, former director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and longtime project scientist of the agency’s Voyager mission, died on June 9, 2024. He was age 88. He was preceded in death by his wife, Alice Stone, whom he met at the University of Chicago. They are survived by their two daughters, Susan and Janet Stone, and two grandsons.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/ed-stone-former-director-of-jpl-and-voyager-project-scientist-dies
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/who-we-are/faces-of-leadership-the-directors-of-jpl/dr-edward-c-stone-1936

Edward C. Stone, Explorer. 1936-2024


http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum38/HTML/002594.html

[Orionid]

Dr Stone pozostawił po sobie wyjątkowo duże dziedzictwo, nie tylko w programie Voyager.

Edward C. Stone, 1936-2024
June 11, 2024

(...) In 1991, Stone was named director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech for NASA. He remained in that role until May 2001, during which time he oversaw 21 different missions and instruments, including the Mars Pathfinder Soujourner rover, the first wheeled vehicle to operate on another planet. (...)

He also served on the board of the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA) for nearly 25 years. As part of his leadership roles there in the mid 1980s through the 1990s, he oversaw the construction of the W. M. Keck Observatory, one of the most productive ground-based astronomical observatories in the world. He was also on the board of the W. M. Keck Foundation. (...)

"It is hard for me to think of any scientist today with a scientific legacy as broad and multifaceted as Ed's," says Fiona A. Harrison, the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair for the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, and Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics. "He made major contributions to cosmic ray and space physics, planetary exploration, solar physics and ground-based astronomy. His knowledge was encyclopedic and his enthusiasm for exploring the cosmos unbounded. Personally, he influenced me profoundly as a mentor, colleague, and co-leader of the Space Radiation Lab and I already miss his advice and friendship tremendously." (...)
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/edward-stone-1936-2024

JPL’s Ed Stone, who took us on a true star trek, retires
By ANISSA RIVERA PUBLISHED: November 1, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. | UPDATED: November 1, 2022 at 11:32 a.m.


From left,  JPL’s former directors Michael Watkins, Laurie Leshin (current JLP Director) ED Stone (Voyager Director), and Dr. Charles Elachi, gathered during the  45th launch anniversary that brought those who work on the missions together. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)

(...) During his tenure, Stone oversaw Galileo’s five-year orbital mission to Jupiter, the launch of Cassini to Saturn, the launch of the Mars Global Surveyor and a new generation of Earth science satellites, as well as the successful Mars Pathfinder landing in 1997. He also taught at Caltech after JPL.

Stone was a 21-year-old graduate student when he read a newspaper article about Russia launching a spacecraft into earth’s orbit. The start of the Space Age spurred Stone on to his life’s work. He earned his doctorate in 1964 and joined Caltech designing and building Earth’s first generation of satellites. Stone became the Voyager project scientist in 1972, a position held until his retirement. (...)

For more than 50 years, Stone has led and worked with 11 teams of scientists, two of whom succeeded him at JPL. (...)
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/11/01/jpls-ed-stone-who-took-us-on-a-true-star-trek-retires/

Celebrating Voyager’s 40 Years in Space with Ed Stone