Alan Stern
Alan Stern
Sol Alan Sternis an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express...
beyond cross entire mission solar took washington
It took us more years to get the mission beyond the Washington beltway than it will take to cross the entire Solar System.
billion expect miles mission original takes visits
We really expect the mission to be transformational. This is the capstone of the original visits to the planets. It takes us 4 billion miles away and 4 billion years back in time.
led missions nasa planets since
This is the capstone of the missions to the planets that NASA has led since the 1960s.
initial last mission
This is the capstone of the initial reconnaissance of the planets, the first mission to the last planet.
call everest mission planetary
I like to call this mission the Everest of planetary exploration. It's really fantastic.
example horizons last mission nearest
I jokingly say now that New Horizons is the first mission to the nearest example of the last planet.
arrive candy kids shop system
We're going to be like kids in a candy shop when we arrive at a system like this.
history initial states united
The United States is going to go down in history for the initial reconnaissance of the planets.
close high inner map planets regions resolution sensitive sky sun though wide
Even though it's not as sensitive or as high resolution as the Hubble, we're able to look at the inner planets close to the sun and map wide regions of the sky very quickly.
four gas giants inner learned outer planets pluto rocky understand view
We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context.
backup days hill launching mean power three
I ... was not comfortable with launching without backup power. I've been working on this for 17 years ... Two or three days doesn't mean a hill of beans.
air flight sitting
The air conditioning was off. The flight controllers were sitting there wiping sweat.
believe classify objects planetary properties
I don't believe we should classify planetary objects by location. We should use properties of the objects as a guide.
brightest fossil objects pluto relic solar
Pluto is just the brightest of the many objects in the Kuiper Belt. It's a fossil relic of the formation of our solar system.