The first man-made object to venture beyond the Solar System bore his signature
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Of all NASA missions, one of the most applauded by the scientific community is the one that has to do with Voyager probesthe ships that have been traveling through outer space since the late 1970s and in whose development the scientist we honor today participated in this article.
The legacy of Edward C. Stone
Today we have to tell some sad news, which has to do with the death of one of the scientists who put space exploration at the pinnacle. Ed Stone not only participated in the development and launch of the Voyager probes, but also became director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He last June 9 2024, Ed. died at 88 years old old having revolutionized the scientific establishment in the United States. So much so, that last year the California Institute of Technology created a professorship in his honor, which it called the ‘Edward C. Stone Professorship’.
However, the memory of the scientific community has nothing to do with professorships, honors or awards, but with the contribution of the scientist to the development and knowledge of humanity. We are talking, in the words of Nicola Fox, deputy administrator of NASA’s Scientific Mission Directorate, included in the JPL statement:
(…) a pioneer who dared powerful things in space (…) Ed took humanity on a planetary journey in our solar system and beyond, sending NASA where no spacecraft had gone before. His legacy has left us with a tremendous and profound impact on NASA, the scientific community and the world.
The legacy of Edward C. Stone is linked to the nine NASA missions in which he participated as principal investigator or leader and to the five missions in which he took the role of co-investigator. Ed could boast of being one of the few scientists to participate so much in the mission that has come closest to the Sun, the so-called Parker Solar Probeand in the one that has reached the furthest in space, the aforementioned Voyager.
About the latter, Ed Stone had declared in 2018 that ‘become Voyager’s chief scientist was been the best decision that I took in life’. Furthermore, he claimed that ‘it opened a wonderful door to exploration’.
However, after taking command of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the scientist continued creating history, being responsible for missions such as Pathfinderwhich took the first rover to Mars, or the Cassini/Huygens, which carried the first orbiter around Saturn. A legacy so extensive that it has placed him at the global summit of scientists who have shed light on outer space to humanity.
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