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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.
Alan Stern -
My field is called planetary science.
Alan Stern
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America's space program has been the envy and inspiration of the world. It has made landmark scientific discoveries that are a lasting legacy of this nation's greatness. It has studied Earth in ways no other nation can match.
Alan Stern -
The solar system is completely wide open. Almost anywhere we go, I'm sure we would learn a lot.
Alan Stern -
To keep everyone invested in your vision, you have to back up a little bit and really analyze who the different stakeholders are and what they individually respond to.
Alan Stern -
The first mission to Mars did not expect to find craters and river valleys, and yet they did. The first mission to Jupiter didn't expect to find ocean worlds and volcano worlds, but they did.
Alan Stern -
The big lesson of planetary science is when you do a first reconnaissance of a new kind of object, you should expect the unexpected.
Alan Stern -
I can't imagine how many kids around the world will look at pictures of Pluto and think, 'I want to grow up to be a scientist.'
Alan Stern
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It's interesting - Pluto's almost a brand unto itself. It's the farthest. It's the most diminutive of the classical planets. It's been maligned by astronomers. It's always the one with all the question marks in the back of the textbook in the table. I think children identify with it because it's smaller, kind of cute.
Alan Stern -
That so many binary or quasi-binary KBOs exist came as a real surprise to the research community.
Alan Stern -
I'm the one who originally coined the term 'dwarf planet,' back in the nineteen-nineties.
Alan Stern -
CSF and its members believe strongly in the exploration of space of all kinds, including commercial purposes.
Alan Stern -
By going to Pluto, we have a chance to anchor, with real data, models of the early evolution of Earth's atmosphere.
Alan Stern -
I think if you were between maybe 6 and 16, there was nothing like Apollo, and I wonder if there can be something like that again. We'll just have to see.
Alan Stern
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One of the implications of the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and its many small planets is that many scientists now think of the solar system as having not two but three zones.
Alan Stern -
Whether there's even an ocean on Pluto deep inside is a question I hope New Horizons can address in indirect ways.
Alan Stern -
Human beings have long wondered whether they are alone in the universe.
Alan Stern -
The Pluto system is much more complex than I had expected.
Alan Stern -
Every mission has life-or-death moments.
Alan Stern -
I tell public audiences, don't go to a podiatrist for brain surgery; don't go to an astronomer for planetary science.
Alan Stern
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I think when people see Pluto revealed by New Horizons, its satellite system, its complex surface, its atmosphere, I think they'll have a hard time saying 'That's not a planet' because it obviously will be, and I think most people are already coming to that opinion anyway, but I think that's really going to drive it home viscerally.
Alan Stern -
Even in our deep ocean, there are ecosystems at work with no light whatsoever down in the deepest portions of the oceanic abyss.
Alan Stern -
CASIS has to succeed because for it not to succeed would be a huge setback for the International Space Station program.
Alan Stern -
People ask, 'What are the scientific questions you're going to answer?' New Horizons doesn't have any of those; it's purely about raw exploration... We're not 'rewriting the textbook' - we're writing the textbook from scratch.
Alan Stern