We're just learning that a lot of planets are small planets, and we didn't know that before, fact is, in planetary science, objects such as Pluto and the other dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt are considered planets and called… — Alan Stern Copy Share Image
We really just didn't realize the diversity of planetary types in our solar system. Pluto looked like a misfit because it was the only one we saw. And just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are… — Alan Stern Copy Share Image
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… — Alan Stern Copy Share
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… — Alan Stern Copy Share
It used to be said that Pluto is a misfit. But now we know Earth is the misfit. This is the most populous class… — Alan Stern Copy Share
The Kuiper belt region, which I call the third zone because it lies beyond the rocky terrestrial planets and beyond the giant planets, is… — Alan Stern Copy Share
I think if you were between maybe 6 and 16, there was nothing like Apollo, and I wonder if there can be something like… — Alan Stern Copy Share
If you put Earth out beyond Neptune, you wouldn't be able to call it a planet because it couldn't clear its zone. — Alan Stern Copy Share
When we first sent missions to Jupiter, no one expected to find moons that would have active volcanoes. And I could go down a… — Alan Stern Copy Share
Pluto is still active four and a half billion years into its history. It was expected that small planets like Pluto would cool off… — Alan Stern Copy Share
The Kuiper Belt is the largest mapped structure in our planetary system, three times as big as all the territory from the sun out… — Alan Stern Copy Share
If two billion people wanted to watch a robot fly by Pluto, imagine what it will be like when the first humans step on… — Alan Stern Copy Share
To keep everyone invested in your vision, you have to back up a little bit and really analyze who the different stakeholders are and… — Alan Stern Copy Share
We're going to find Marses and maybe Earths out in the solar system's attic of the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt. — Alan Stern Copy Share
One of the implications of the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and its many small planets is that many scientists now think of the… — Alan Stern Copy Share
CASIS has to succeed because for it not to succeed would be a huge setback for the International Space Station program. — Alan Stern Copy Share
