Alan Stern is a planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant, and author. He leads NASA’s 880 million dollar New Horizons mission, which explored Pluto and its moons before heading deeper into the Kuiper Belt that surrounds the solar system. In 2007 and 2008, Alan was also NASA’s chief of space and Earth science programs. In this episode, Robinson and Alan talk all about Pluto and how Earth got there through New Horizons. They begin by discussing whether or not Pluto should be classified as a planet, before turning to the logistics of flying to Pluto and then what the New Horizons probe discovered there. Alan’s book, Chasing New Horizons (Picador, 2018) details the story of the groundbreaking mission.

Alan’s Website: https://alanstern.space

Chasing New Horizons: https://a.co/d/gwvun3e

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:56 Introduction

02:46 Why Planets?

08:23 Is Pluto a Planet?

22:19 New Horizons’ Journey to Pluto

30:14 NASA’s Flyby-Then-Probe Model

37:20 What Did NASA’s New Horizons Mission Learn About Pluto?

50:11 New Horizons After Pluto and Beyond

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.