Alan Stern Quotes

It used to be said that Pluto is a misfit. But now we know Earth is the misfit. This is the most populous class of planet in our solar system and we have never sent a mission to this class.

It'll be the fastest spacecraft ever to Jupiter...13 months after launch. We pass the Moon in just nine hours.

Naming celestial objects is usually done by astronomers and professionals. Other people who are interested in space never get the opportunity to do that kind of thing.

It's strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons

We're in the space exploration business, and the outer solar system is a wild, wooly place. We haven't explored it very well.

There are lots of really interesting little planets out there in the Kuiper Belt, but Pluto's the only one that's got all the cool attributes.

The big lesson of planetary science is when you do a first reconnaissance of a new kind of object, you should expect the unexpected.

A river is a river, independent of whether there are other rivers nearby. In science, we call things what they are based on their attributes, not what they're next to.

Of course Pluto is a planet: It's massive enough to have its shape controlled by gravity rather than material strength, which is the hallmark of planethood.

Competition-driven innovation and price pressure that commercial practices foster can only make human spaceflight ever more common and U.S. leadership in this domain ever clearer.