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S. ALAN STERN
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| astern@boulder.swri.edu |
Dr. Alan Stern is a planetary scientist and astrophysicist, an author, and the Director of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Stern is an avid researcher whose work has taken him to numerous astronomical observatories, to the south pole, and to the upper atmosphere aboard high performance military aircraft.
From 1991 to 1994 he was the leader of SwRI's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences group at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. From 1983 to 1991 he held positions at the University of Colorado in the Center for Space and Geoscience Policy, the office of the Vice President for Research, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) . Before receiving his doctorate in 1989, Dr. Stern completed a master's degree in aerospace engineering and then spent seven years as an aerospace systems engineer, concentrating on spacecraft and payload systems at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Martin Marietta Aerospace, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado.
Dr. Stern has published over 130 technical papers and 20 popular articles. He has given over 100 hundred technical talks and dozens of popular lectures and speeches about astronomy and the space program. He has written two books, The U.S. Space Program After Challenger, published by Franklin-Watts in 1987, and Pluto & Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System published by John Wiley & Sons in 1997; additionally, he has served as editor on three technical volumes, and two collections of scientific essays, "Our Worlds" (1998) and "Our Universe" (2000) by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Stern's research has focused on studies of our solar system's Kuiper disk and Oort cloud, the satellites of the outer planets, Pluto, comets, and the search for evidence of solar systems around other stars. He has also worked on spacecraft rendezvous theory, terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds, galactic astrophysics, and studies of tenuous atmospheres.
Dr. Stern has over 15 years of experience in instrument development, with a strong concentration in ultraviolet technologies. Dr. Stern is a Principal Investigator (PI) in NASA's UV sounding rocket program, and was the project scientist on a Shuttle-deployable SPARTAN astronomical satellite. He is the PI of the miniaturized HIPPS Pluto breadboard camera/IR spectrometer/UV spectrometer payload proposed for the NASA/Pluto-Kuiper Express mission, and and the ALICE UV Spectrometer for the ESA/NASA Rosetta comet orbiter. He is a member of the New Millennium Deep Space 1 (DS1) mission science team, and is a Co-investigator on both the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) scheduled for flight in 2002, and the ESA SPICAM Mars UV spectrometer scheduled for launch in 2003. He is the PI of the SWUIS ultraviolet imager, which has flown two Shuttle missions, and he is also the PI of the SWUIS-A airborne astronomical facility. In this capacity Dr. Stern has flown numerous WB-57 and F-18 airborne research astronomy missions. In 1995 he was selected to be a Space Shuttle mission specialist finalist.
Dr. Stern has been a guest observer on several NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the International Infrared Observer (ISO), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer (EUVE). He is also a regular user of various groundbased optical and submillimeter radio telescopes.
Dr. Stern has served on several NASA committees, including the Lunar Exploration Science Working Group (LExSWG) and the Discovery Program Science Working Group (DPSWG), the Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (SSES), the New Millennium Science Working Group (NMSWG), and the Sounding Rocket Working Group (SRWG). He was Chair of NASA's Outer Planets Science Working Group (OPSWG) from 1991 to 1994. He is a member of the AAAS, the AAS, and the AGU.
Dr. Stern's interests include hiking, camping, gardening, and writing. He is an instrumentrated commercial pilot and flight instructor, with both powered and sailplane ratings. He and his wife Carole have two daughters and a son.
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Last modified: December 27, 2001