Bill Stone, Explorer

Wired has an article on Bill Stone - he's a spelunker, invented the re-breather for scuba diving, an architect on NISTs Ladar (laser Radar) project and work on DepthX - a submersible robot probe to explore the oceans of Europa. He's also an explorer of the old school. To wit:

"There are plenty of people on Earth. It's not like the human race is going to disappear if a few people don't come back," he says coldly. "Exploration is dangerous. So NASA has lost 17 people. Here's a list of 16 of my close friends dead with no state funerals, no schools named after them. These people have been to unknown territory, where every step forward is one step deeper into what might be the world's deepest cave. It's a holy mission."

The article describes the process Stone went through of recovering one of his dead colleague from a mile deep cave in Mexico. While Stone's attitude towards risk is refreshing it does make you wonder if the people who work with him share the same attitude. In a way, he reminds me of the Capt. Kilgore character from Apocalypse Now:

Well, he wasn't a bad officer, I guess. He loved his boys and you felt safe with him. He was one of those guys that had that weird light around him. You just knew he wasn't gonna get so much as a scratch here.