Stone is a civil engineer, not "civilian" - Freudian slip. A civil
engineer, for you Marines, designs things like sidewalks and trash cans.


Bill Mee wrote:
> 
> Wakulla II Project Bumbling continues:
> 
> According to a recent newspaper article Bill Stone now refers to
> himself as an "Aerospace Engineer". This is just a polite way of
> calling himself a "rocket scientist". The more we learn of his
> outlandish, Rube Goldbergesque schemes for the Wakulla II project the
> more we tend to agree that Stone’s mind is somewhere in outer
> space, even if he himself resides on terra firma.
> 
> Apparently, in between redesigning the Cis Lunar, managing the Wakulla
> II project and performing feats of "aerospace engineering" Stone has
> told the National Institute on Science and Technology (NIST) that he
> "tests space suits by cave diving with them". This is actually true if
> you consider a "dry suit" to be a "space suit". According to one of
> our spies, Stone was observed performing launch tests on his drysuit
> from the bottom of the Wakulla Springs basin. Similar to an Atlas
> booster, Stone became airborne when his "space suit" "over inflated"
> and sent him rocketing to the surface.
> 
> Even less amusing is the fact that critical last minute firmware
> changes are being performed on the Cis Lunar rebreather. This is
> because the red/green/amber warning light system still does not
> function correctly. Fortunately for Stone, electronic closed circuit
> rebreathers (CCRs) are not subject to any Federal Regulation even
> though the device is clearly a life support system by any stretch of
> the imagination. If instead we termed the Cis a "computerized
> respiratory assist device" it would be subjected to the most draconian
> of regulatory compliance requirements. Before this device could be
> tested on humans it would have to have an Investigational Device
> Exemption (IDE), have the oversight of an Institutional Review Board
> (IRB), meet all of the very stringent criteria for testing on human
> subjects and be part of a Pre Market Approval (PMA) filing. If this
> process was circumvented in any way Stone and his band of "aerospace
> engineers" would be subjected to harsh criminal and civil penalties.
> These laws are rigidly enforced within the medical device industry and
> there are company executives languishing in jail for having violated
> them. For instance, if a death or serious injury occurs with such a
> device a Medical Device Report (MDR) must be filed immediately and
> failure to do so is a criminal offense. Take for example the near
> death of the USCT diver at Madison Springs recently. That event
> clearly would be considered reportable. At least Richie Pyle is off
> the hook since he "reported it" to the rebreather list after the cat
> got out of the bag.
> 
> Stone’s "Thin Man" and "Fat Man" scooters are fine examples of
> "rocket science". For those of you who are unaware these names were
> used to describe the uranium and plutonium bombs respectively, which
> were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Stone is
> quite correct to name these WKPP purloined designs after "bombs".
> Almost assuredly these devices can be expected to detonate when
> hydrogen, from the violently offgassing Nickel Metal Hydride
> batteries, leaks passed the doubtlessly flimsy sealing interface
> between the motor and battery compartment. Like the other "aerospace
> engineers" from Morton Thiokol whose sealing expertise resulted in
> another well known hydrogen blast, Stone can be expected to
> manufacture excuses when leaky seals turn the "Fat Man" into the Von
> Hindenburg. Not wanting to pass up on any opportunity to "technify"
> the simple and reliable, Stone has placed motor speed control circuits
> inside his scooters despite the fact that the speed can be easily
> varied via the manual pitch control on the prop. This jumble of op
> amps, oscillators and thyristors represents dozens of failure points
> and is the absolute height of foolishness to place in a critical life
> support system. This is especially idiotic in view of the critical
> life support role of the scooter and when balanced against the
> miniscule savings in energy is simply an unjustifiable risk.
> 
> To make matters worse, the brilliant rocket engineer, Stone has
> connected his scooter bombs to his untested CCR. When the scooter
> "eats" the line at one of the many intersections in the Wakulla "A"
> tunnel, the resulting panic stricken abandonment of the scooter and
> life support will surely win high praise for this gem of aeronautical
> engineering.
> 
> All of this nonsense leads us to conclude that Stone is absolutely
> desperate to prove something. This makes him and his project extremely
> dangerous.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>


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