William C. "Bill" Stone (born December 7, 1952) is an American
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
,
caver
Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...
and
explorer
Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians.
Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
, known for exploring deep
cave
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...
s, sometimes with
autonomous underwater vehicle
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includ ...
s. He has participated in over 40 international expeditions and is president and CEO of
Stone Aerospace
Stone Aerospace is an aerospace engineering firm founded by engineer and explorer Bill Stone, located in Del Valle, a suburb of Austin, Texas.
Biography
Stone grew up in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. He was an active caver in the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
Civil Engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...
, awarded in 1974. In 1976, while studying engineering at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, Stone took part in an expedition to the
Sistema Huautla
Sistema Huautla is a cave system in the Sierra Mazateca mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. it was the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere, from top to bottom, with over 55 miles of mapped passageways.
Location
Sis ...
in
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the Federative Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipaliti ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
, where his group set a new penetration depth record of .
After obtaining a Ph.D. in Engineering, Stone worked at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...
in
Gaithersburg
Gaithersburg ( ), officially the City of Gaithersburg, is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Gaithersburg had a population of 69,657, making it the ninth-largest location in the state. Ga ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
from 1980–2004. While at the institute, Stone established the Construction Metrology and Automation Group. He led the group for seven years before stepping down to focus on projects at Stone Aerospace.
In 1998–1999, Stone directed an international group of explorers consisting of over 100 volunteers to participate in the Wakulla 2 Project. Upon securing a permit from the State of
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...
the expedition began mapping the cave of Wakulla Springs, near
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the populatio ...
.
Stone was the
principal investigator
In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often u ...
for the
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
-funded
DEPTHX
The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer (DEPTHX) is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed and built by Stone Aerospace, an aerospace engineering firm based in Austin, Texas. It was designed to autonomously explore and map underwater sinkholes in ...
project, which produced a highly advanced
AUV
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes ...
to explore the world's deepest
sinkholes
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...
. The success of that project was key in getting funding for the
ENDURANCE
Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...
project, with Professor
Peter Doran
Peter T. Doran, Ph.D. is Professor of Geology and Geophysics and John Franks Endowed Chair at Louisiana State University. Prior to 2015, he was faculty in Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Doran specialize ...
of the
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...
as its principal investigator. ENDURANCE completed two field seasons at Lake Bonney in the Dry Valleys of
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
in 2008 and 2009. Both projects served as a testing ground for developing a vehicle that can autonomously scour the seas of Jupiter's moon
Europa
Europa may refer to:
Places
* Europe
* Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace
* Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro
* Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development
* Europa Clif ...
for signs of microbial life.
Stone's caving expeditions in
Sistema Huautla
Sistema Huautla is a cave system in the Sierra Mazateca mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. it was the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere, from top to bottom, with over 55 miles of mapped passageways.
Location
Sis ...
in
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the Federative Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipaliti ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
is chronicled in his book, ''Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent Into the World's Most Treacherous Cave'' (2002), which he co-authored with Barbara am Ende and Monte Paulsen. Stone also figures prominently in James Tabor's book ''Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth'' (2010), which discusses his contribution to extreme caving and summarizes many of Stone's caving expeditions, most notably those to Huautla and Cheve.
MK1 rebreather
In December 1987 Bill Stone became known to the wider diving community when he demonstrated the Cis-Lunar MK1 model
rebreather
A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantially unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. Oxygen i ...
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...
in a scuba dive which lasted 24 hours and used only half of the system's capacity.''The Cave Divers'' (Burgess) p. 122.
TED appearance
Bill Stone gave a talk at TED 2007 about exploring the world's deepest caves and frontier space travel. In the talk, Stone pledged his devotion to lead a mining expedition to the Moon "to mine ice thought to be trapped on the Moon's southern pole at Shackleton Crater, and to sell derived products (including propellants and other consumables) on the Moon and in
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...