Feature: How Alan Stern's tenacity, drive, and command got a NASA spacecraft ... - Science /AAAS

Alan Stern is loath to miss a cue. Short in stature, Stern has legs that move faster than most people's, and a mind that is generally several steps ahead, too. The camera crew, from the Japanese network NHK, is one of four following Stern, a planetary scientist from the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in Boulder, Colorado. Stern executes a quick flyby. Above him in the atrium dangles a half-size replica of New Horizons, a NASA spacecraft. Its life-size twin is now cruising through space nearly 5 billion kilometers from Earth, adding more than a million kilometers to its journey each day. The spacecraft is surprisingly small, not much bigger than Stern. New Horizons is closing in on Pluto, once thought to be the last of the planets and a lonely outpost on the solar system's edge. Discovered in 1930, Pluto has remained something of a cipher, despite the best efforts of telescopes in space and on the ground. In 2006, Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, a move that still annoys Stern. Yet in a karmic reversal, Pluto's scientific and public popularity—its brand, Stern might say—has soared. Source: news.sciencemag.org