Getting NASA’s Pluto mission off the ground took blood, sweat and years

Author: Lisa Grossman / Source: Science News

Chasing New Horizons
Alan Stern and David Grinspoon
Picador, $28

The world tracked the New Horizons’ spacecraft with childlike glee as it flew by Pluto in 2015.

The probe provided the first ever close-up of the place that many of us grew up considering the ninth planet. Pluto revealed itself as a fascinating world, with a shifting surface (SN: 12/26/15, p. 16), a hazy atmosphere (SN Online: 10/15/15) and a heart of nitrogen ice (SN Online: 9/23/16).

But the course of space exploration never did run smooth. In Chasing New Horizons, Alan Stern — New Horizons’ principal investigator and chief champion — and his coauthor, team member David Grinspoon, share their recollections of how a band of scrappy planetary scientists got a mission to the farthest reaches of the solar system off the ground. Over the course of a decade and a half, Stern and colleagues in the “Pluto Underground” fought first to get a Pluto mission taken seriously by NASA, then to keep it alive through budget woes, political battles, stiff competition from other mission proposals and outright cancellations.

Even if you followed the flyby closely and think you know this story, the book divulges details that will surprise you. Come for the sweeping tale of wonder and exploration; stay for the gaggle of planetary scientists celebrating on Bourbon Street once their mission finally got the green light.

Science News talked with Stern about the book, what it’s like to be “Mr. Pluto” and what’s next for New Horizons, which is currently in hibernation cruising through the Kuiper Belt. The interview that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

SN: Almost half of the book is about the fight to get the New Horizons mission approved. Why was it important for you to focus on that?

Stern: If you look at the 26-year span, from 1989 [the year the American Geophysical Union meeting devoted the first conference session to the subject of a Pluto mission] to 2015 when we got there, almost precisely half of that time was back and forth…

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