Bill Carter

Bill Carter served some eight years in the U.S. Air Force, as a geodetic officer and Minuteman missile launch officer, before becoming a research geodesist at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL), where he helped develop one of the first lunar laser ranging (LLR)observatories, near Tucson, Az. Later he led the development of a second generation LLR station on Mount Haleakala, Maui, HI, before moving to the National Geodetic Survey, in Rockville, MD, where he led the development of a network of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observatories in the US, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. Currently Bill is a research professor at the University of Houston (UH), where his research deals with the refinement and application of airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) to a wide range of scientific studies. The UH research team recently used airborne lidar to find and map the ruins of previously unknown ancient cities in the rain forests of Honduras.

Bill Carter has co-authored two popularized history of science books: 'Latitude, How American Astronomers Solved the Mystery of Variation,' and 'Simon Newcomb, America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal,' with his daughter Merri Sue Carter, an astronomer at the US Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station. 'Gravity Talkers,' Bill's first fictional novel, was written over the past few years as time allowed, and much of the technological and scientific content reflects his thinking about what the future may have in store for humans, as they seek to explore and better understand the universe.