Dr. S. Alan Stern
S. Alan
Stern, Ph.D., FAAS, FIAA is principal
investigator of the
New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief
Scientist at
Moon Express.
Alan is a planetary scientist, space program executive,
consultant, and author. He is serving as an Associate Vice President at
the Southwest Research Institute and has his own aerospace consulting
firm, with current and former clients including Jeff Bezos’s Blue
Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, the Odyssey Moon Google Lunar
X-Prize team, Boeing Aerospace, and the Johns Hopkins
University.
In 2007 and 2008, Alan served as NASA’s chief of all space and
Earth science programs, directing a $4.4B organization with 93 separate
flight missions and a program of over 3,000 research grants. During his
NASA tenure, a record 10 major new flight projects were started and deep
reforms of NASA’s scientific research and the education and public
outreach programs were put in place. His tenure also featured an
emphasis on cost control in NASA flight missions that resulted in a 63%
decrease in cost overruns. In 2007, he was
named to the Time 100’s list
of most influential people.
His career has taken him to numerous astronomical observatories, to the
South Pole, and to the upper atmosphere aboard various high performance
NASA aircraft including F/A-18 Hornets, KC-135 zero-G, and WB-57
Canberras. He has been involved as a researcher in 24 suborbital,
orbital, and planetary space missions, including 9 for which he was the
mission principle investigator; and he has led the development of 8
ultraviolet and visible/infrared scientific instruments for NASA space
missions. Among his mission lead roles is NASA’s $720M New
Horizon’s Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission, the largest PI-led space mission
ever launched by NASA.
Prior to his service at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Alan
served as the Executive Director of the Southwest Research Institute’s
(SwRI’s) Space Science and Engineering Division from 2005–2007. Previous
to that, from 1998 to 2005, he was the Director of the Space Studies
Department at SwRI, and from 1994 to 1998, he was from 1994–1998 the
leader of the Geophysical, Astrophysical, and Planetary Science section
in SwRI’s Space Sciences Department. During his SwRI tenure from 1991 to
2007, Alan grew SwRI’s planetary group from three people to one of
the largest in the world, with a total project value exceeding $250M.
Prior to founding SwRI’s Colorado operations in 1994, he was the leader
of SwRI’s Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences group at Southwest
Research Institute in San Antonio. From 1983 to 1991 he held positions
at the University of Colorado in the Center for Space and Geosciences
Policy, the office of the Vice President for Research, the Center for
Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA).
Before earning his doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1989,
Alan completed twin master’s degrees in aerospace engineering and
atmospheric sciences (1980 and 1981), and then spent six years as an
aerospace systems engineer, concentrating on spacecraft and payload
systems at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Martin Marietta Aerospace, and
the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of
Colorado. His two undergraduate degrees are in physics and astronomy
from the University of Texas (1978 and 1980).
In 1995, Alan was selected to be a Space Shuttle mission specialist
finalist, and in 1996 he was a candidate Space Shuttle Payload
Specialist.
He has published over 200 technical papers and 40 popular
articles. He has given over 300 technical talks and over 100 popular
lectures and speeches about astronomy and the space program. He has
written two books,
The U.S. Space Program After Challenger
(Franklin-Watts, 1987), and
Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged
Edge of the Solar System (Wiley 1997, 2005). Additionally, he
has served
as editor on three technical volumes, and three collections of
scientific popularizations:
Our Worlds (Cambridge, 1998),
Our Universe
(Cambridge, 2000), and
Worlds Beyond (Cambridge, 2003).
His research has focused on studies of our solar system’s Kuiper
belt and Oort cloud, comets, the satellites of the outer planets, the
Pluto system, and the search for evidence of solar systems around other
stars. He has also worked on spacecraft rendezvous theory, terrestrial
polar mesospheric clouds, galactic astrophysics, and studies of tenuous
satellite atmospheres, including the atmosphere of the
moon.
Alan has served on numerous NASA advisory committees, including the
Lunar Exploration Science Working Group and the Discovery Program
Science Working Group, the Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (SSES),
the New Millennium Science Working Group, the Pluto Science Definition
Team (SDT), and NASA’s Sounding Rocket Working Group. He was chairman of
NASA’s Outer Planets Science Working Group from 1991 to 1994. He served
as a panel member for the National Research Council’s 2003–2013 decadal
survey on planetary science, and on the NASA Advisory Council
(2006–2007). He is currently serving as the chair of the Suborbital
Applications Researcher’s Group (SARG) of the Commercial Spaceflight
Federation (CSF).
Alan is a fellow of the AAAS and the IAA, and a member of the AAS
and the AGU; he was elected incoming chair of the AAS Division of
Planetary Sciences in 2006.
He has been awarded the Von Braun Aerospace Achievement Award of the
National Space Society, the 2007 University of Colorado George Norlin
Distinguished Alumnus Award, and the 2009 St. Mark’s Preparatory School
Distinguished Alumnus Award. He is a member of the board of directors of
the Challenger Center for Space Science Education.
His personal interests include hiking, camping, and writing. He
is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with both
powered and sailplane ratings. He and his wife Carole have two daughters
and a son; they make their home near Boulder, Colorado.
Watch
New Horizons: Exploring the Solar System’s Frontier,
Origin of the Solar System with Dr. Alan Stern Part 1, and
Origin of the Solar System with Dr. Alan Stern Part 2.
Read
Celebrate Suborbital,
Congress and NASA: Expedite Commercial Crew,
Imagine Reconnecting NASA,
Creating Near-Term Results in US Human Space Exploration,
A New Rocket for Science, and
Apollo’s Greatest Achievement.
Read his
Wikipedia profile.