Edward Stone retires after 50 years as NASA Voyager’s project scientist | Hacker News Reader

Edward Stone retires after 50 years as NASA Voyager’s project scientist

jpl.nasa.gov

128 pointstrothamel20 comments

>> In 2015, NASA acknowledged the 25th anniversary of the photograph. Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, commented: “Twenty-five years ago, Voyager 1 looked back toward Earth and saw a "pale blue dot", an image that continues to inspire wonderment about the spot we call home.”

Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot

- https://youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

_________

Few videos of Ed Stone online:

- https://www.google.com/search?q=Edward+Stone+NASA’s+Voyager+...

And here’s an interview with him too:

- https://astronomy.com/bonus/edstone

I grew up with the Voyager missions. I lived in the rural UK, and would avidly watch Tomorrow's world (a weekly UK show in the 70s / 80s that showcased the latest science and technology), to see the latest news on Voyager 1 and 2. JPL in Pasadena seemed like a magical place - I yearned to be there, rotating some dish antenna to receive the faint transmissions from so far away.

I really wish there was something like Tomorrow's World now, (is there?) - it brilliantly explained the possibilities of tech for the future, without ever just being an advert - in fact I don't think I ever saw a device on there that you could purchase (or at least I don't remember them).

I vividly remember seeing an LCD display that kept the display on without power - very early e-ink, and the possibilities seemed so exciting to me.

Nothing scratches that itch for me today (other than Hacker News to a degree) as most tech writing it avertorials or built from press releases. At times Engaget came close for me, but these days it is just another tech news site with all the same information, and very little focus on 'across the horizon'.

totally agree.

For me it was shows like Beyond 2000 (on Star TV in India), and reading magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (on the potty, who are we kidding), which served as massive inspiration as a kid for the power of technology to shape the world to come.

Beyond 2000 was a wonderful show. Funnily enough the one episode I remember the most is the one about RFID tags and possibly using them for scanning purchases in shops, where you'd just put your bags in correct place and it would count them up - with a joke that it won't work for everything, pointing to loosely packed vegetables :-)

Watching it as a child I was bored by all the health tech stories, now I’m far more interested in them.

Me too! Whenever Judith Hann came on (she did the health stories, if I recall) I would roll my eyes. You're immortal when you're young, after all! :-)

I worry that there are probably 1000, but they are all forced to clamor for attention so hard to get noticed, that they'll be all hype over substance. I think the internet's "everyone has a voice" brings its own problems. It's like a Denial of Service attack on our attention.

> It's like a Denial of Service attack on our attention.

Stealing it.

The Horizon programmes on Jupiter, and Saturn probably got me interested in Astronomy the most.

Those were such gold! The small number of channels available made such programs all the more gripping, I think.

I also remember those episodes of Horizon! I distinctly remember their use of early computer graphics, The Planet Suite and the photos from the probes to create a stunning vision of a giant planet barrelling majestically through the cosmos.

Some of the predictions show got right:

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-39778855

_______________

Example episodes from UK show Tomorrow’s World:

- Mobile Phone (1979)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vix6TMnj9vY

- Office of the Future (1969)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HnMjoitdRRM

- Home Computer (1967)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aJ6SbvrjxZA

_______________

Related Wikipedia page:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_World

For fans of tomorrow's world: "The secret war" is another William Wollard show about the technology that Britain used in the war.

If you like hackernews, you'll probably like it

https://youtu.be/GJCF-Ufapu8

William Woollard and I worked on a TV commercial in the early 80s. Him as the main talent and me as a very much in the background extra

Met a hero, got a day off school and earned 20 pounds of cold, hard cash

My uncle if I'm not mistaken's claim to fame is that he was a shadow in a bryan Adams video

Fun fact: Voyager 2 launched 16 days before Voyager 1.

The numbers are reversed because Voyager 1, being on a faster trajectory, reached Jupiter and Saturn before Voyager 2 did. Voyager 2’s trajectory was better in the sense that it allowed additional flyby’s of Uranus and Neptune.

Related article that may be of interest: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/magazine/the-loyal-engine...

“The Farthest” is an extremely well made documentary which is well worth the watch if you want to see this guy and others in their element.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6223974/

He’s 86 years old now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com