--- description: Find out why Edward Reynolds is one of the 100 most influential people of 2023. title: Edward Reynolds: The 100 Most Influential People of 2023 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e615ad8a7905f2f/698a3bd2d075334acbe6de8c/Edward-Reynolds-time100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 13, 2023 # Edward Reynolds by Jeffrey Kluger  JHU/APL Earth lives in a shooting gallery. By astronomers’ count, there are tens of thousands of asteroids flying in the vicinity of our planet that could cause devastation if they struck us. Last fall, Ed Reynolds did something to make us all a lot safer. A program manager at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Reynolds served as project manager of [NASA’s and APL’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)](https://time.com/6216110/nasa-asteroid-collision-earth/ "undefined"). On Sept. 26, 2022, Reynolds oversaw the deliberate collision of a small spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos. The goal: to see if the impact [could slow the asteroid’s speed](https://time.com/6217306/nasa-asteroid-mission-save-world/ "undefined") by just over a minute, in a test of whether it would be possible to deflect a similar piece of space ordnance that was heading for Earth. The result: the orbit was slowed by a whopping 33 minutes—[vastly exceeding expectations](https://time.com/6221385/nasa-asteroid-deflection-success-dart/ "undefined"). “DART is the very start of our very first planetary defense system,” Reynolds says. “We’re in a much better place than we were before the mission.” _Kluger is a TIME editor at large_ Edward Reynolds Is on the 2023 TIME 100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/"},"headline":"Edward Reynolds","datePublished":"2023-04-13T10:32:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:05.009Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","sponsorshipblock","TIME100 2023","T100Pioneers2023"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e615ad8a7905f2f/698a3bd2d075334acbe6de8c/Edward-Reynolds-time100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"creator":"Jeffrey Kluger","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e615ad8a7905f2f/698a3bd2d075334acbe6de8c/Edward-Reynolds-time100-2023.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/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/","name":"Edward Reynolds"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 | The 100 Most Influential People of 2023","description":"See all the people on Time's 2023 Time 100 list","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P6RIsapV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-04-13T10:30:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P6RIsapV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/","duration":"PT1M53S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269996/edward-reynolds/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```