Background

Sol Alan Stern was born on November 22, 1957, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, to the family of Joel and Leonard Stern.

Education

Alan Stern graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas in 1975. He then studied at the University of Texas, Austin, where he received his bachelor's degrees in physics & astronomy and his master's degrees in aerospace engineering and planetary atmospheres. Later, he earned a doctorate in astrophysics and planetary science from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Career

From 1983 to 1991, Stern held positions at the University of Colorado in the Center for Space and Geoscience Policy, the office of the Vice President for Research, and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy. From 1991 to 1994 he was the leader of Southwest Research Institute's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences group and was Chair of NASA's Outer Planets Science Working Group. From 1994 to 1998 he was the leader of the Geophysical, Astrophysical, and Planetary Science section in Southwest Research Institute's Space Sciences Department, and from 1998 to 2005 he was the Director of the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute. In 1995 he was selected to be a Space Shuttle mission specialist finalist and in 1996 he was a candidate Space Shuttle payload specialist but did not have the opportunity to fly on the Space Shuttle.

In both 2007 and 2016, he was named to the Time 100 list. In 2007 and 2008, Stern 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 was notable for an emphasis on cost control in NASA flight missions that resulted in a 63% decrease in cost overruns.

Since 2008, Stern has had his own aerospace consulting practice. His current and former consulting clients include Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, Naveen Jain's Moon Express Google Lunar X-Prize team, Ball Aerospace, Paragon Space Development Corporation, the NASTAR Center, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and the Johns Hopkins University.

Since 2009, he has been an Associate Vice President and Special Assistant to the President at the Southwest Research Institute. Additionally, from 2008 to 2012 he served on the board of directors of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, and as the Chief Scientist and Mission Architect for Moon Express from 2010 to 2013. From 2011 to 2013 he served as the Director of the Florida Space Institute. Stern is a founder and serves as the Chief Science Officer of World View, a near-space ballooning company. In 2016 and again in 2017 he was elected to be the Board Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

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, F-104 Starfighters, KC-135 Zero-G, and WB-57 Canberras. He has been involved as a researcher in 29 suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, including 14 for which he was a principal investigator; and he has led the development of 8 scientific instruments for NASA space missions. In 1995, he was selected as a Space Shuttle Mission Specialist finalist, and in 1996 he was a candidate Space Shuttle Payload Specialist. In 2010, he became a suborbital payload specialist trainee and is expected to fly several suborbital space missions aboard Virgin Galactic vehicles in 2019-2020.

In 2020, NASA selected Stern to fly as the first NASA-funded commercial space crewmember aboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital space mission. The flight is expected to take place in 2022; there he will perform astronomical and space physiology experiments.

Stern has published over 330 technical papers and 40 popular articles. He has given over 400 technical talks and over 200 popular lectures and speeches about astronomy and the space program. He has written two books, The U.S. Space Program After Challenger (FranklinWatts, 1987), and Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System (Wiley 1997, 2005). Additionally, he has served as an editor on three technical volumes, and three collections of scientific popularizations: Our Worlds (Cambridge, 1998), Our Universe (Cambridge, 2000), and Worlds Beyond (Cambridge, 2003). In May of 2018 his new book with co-author David Grinspoon, Chasing New Horizons (Picador Press), was published.

Achievements

• Alan Stern is best known as the principal investigator on New Horizons, the first-ever mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. He has made detailed studies of Neptune's largest moon, Triton. Every now and then his desire to learn something new brings him closer to home to study asteroids or the thin atmosphere of the Earth's Moon.
  
  He has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer, and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto 2018
  • Enjoy the Ride: Lessons for the Quest to Live a Joyful, Profitable Life in Dentistry 2019

Religion

Alan Stern is an atheist.

Views

Regarding Pluto, Stern stated "Pluto is the first discovered and soon to be reconnoitered of the most plentiful class of planets, while I'm not big on making predictions, I will say that what we will find will certainly be, well, wonderful."

Quotations: "With Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, it's wide open. It's like the Wild West. You get to be the first to do things. It has its own romance and excitement in addition to the actual research value."

Membership

Stern is a fellow of the AAAS, the Royal Astronomical Society, The Explorer’s Club, and is a member of the AAS, IAF, and the AGU; he was elected incoming chair of the Division of Planetary Sciences in 2006.

• American Association for the Advancement of Science

• 

  Royal Astronomical Society

• Explorer's Club

• American Astronomical Society

• International Accreditation Forum

• American Geophysical Union

• 

  Division of Planetary Sciences

Personality

Stern's hobbies include running, hiking, camping, and writing. He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with both powered and sailplane ratings.

Interests

• Writing, camping, gardening, photography

• Writers

  Carl Sagan

• Sport & Clubs

  Running, hiking

Connections

Alan Stern and his wife Carole have two daughters and a son; they make their home near Boulder, Colorado.

Father:

Leonard Stern

Mother:

Joel Stern

Spouse:

Carole Stern

References

• Alan Stern on Twitter