Jim Gray is a Microsoft employee who went missing with his boat off of San Francisco last week. An experienced sailor, it’s odd that he hasn’t turned up, even after a lengthy search by the Coast Guard.
Jim basically invented Sky Server, an image retrieval package designed for the huge astronomy project called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Years ago, my group was part of a proposal to build a NASA satellite, and Jim was part of the team. I didn’t know him personally, but I had sent him emails about what we were planning, and he agreed to be a part of it.
There is quite an effort to find him. You can help! An interactive satellite image search has been set up, and you can help examine images of the ocean to look for telltale signs of his boat. Join in. I’ve done quite a few images myself.
