--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Alan Stern by Ed Stone: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53b940c2ecd08007/69888fd58e0601825946582c/time-100-2016-alan-stern.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 20, 2016 # Alan Stern by Ed Stone  WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 24: Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission team, holds up a bumper sticker while delivering remarks during a press briefing at NASA headquarters July 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. During the briefing the team provided new science updates from the mission to explore Pluto as well as new images of the large celestial body. From left to right are John Grunsfeld, Jim Green, Alan Stern, Michael Summers, Cathy Olkin, and William McKinnon. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 24: Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission team, holds up a bumper sticker while delivering remarks during a press briefing at NASA headquarters July 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. During the briefing the team provided new science updates from the mission to explore Pluto as well as new images of the large celestial body. From left to right are John Grunsfeld, Jim Green, Alan Stern, Michael Summers, Cathy Olkin, and William McKinnon. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)Win McNamee—Getty Images The world overlooked Pluto for too long. In the early 1970s, the hope had been to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto with a Grand Tour mission consisting of four spacecraft. But in 1972, the mission was limited to two Voyager ships and Pluto was dropped from the itinerary. Thirty-four years later, Alan Stern rectified that omission when his New Horizons spacecraft was launched Pluto’s way. The spacecraft arrived in 2015, pouring back findings showing Pluto to be a more geologically dynamic place than we suspected. It’s Alan’s tenacity that we have to thank for that knowledge. I was head of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Alan was working with Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory, and both of our teams submitted competing bids for the mission. Alan won, and he has taken us to a realm of the solar system we would not now be seeing up close without his commitment and persistence. _Stone is the chief scientist for the Voyager Interstellar Mission_ Alan Stern by Ed Stone: TIME 100 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4302228/alan-stern-2016-time-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4302228/alan-stern-2016-time-100/"},"headline":"Alan Stern","datePublished":"2016-04-20T21:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T02:24:16.921Z","description":"Persistent Pluto-crat","url":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4302228/alan-stern-2016-time-100/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53b940c2ecd08007/69888fd58e0601825946582c/time-100-2016-alan-stern.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53b940c2ecd08007/69888fd58e0601825946582c/time-100-2016-alan-stern.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4302228/alan-stern-2016-time-100/","name":"Alan Stern"}}]}] ```