Episode
Dr. Alan Stern: From Pluto to the Stars
- Published
- Dec 1, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1645
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/life-s-tough-explorers-are-tougher-3600599/episodes/dr-alan-stern-from-pluto-to-the-stars/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/life-s-tough-explorers-are-tougher-3600599/dr-alan-stern-from-pluto-to-the-stars.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In this episode of Life’s Tough, Explorers are Tougher, planetary scientist Dr. Alan Stern shares his journey from childhood awe during Apollo 11 to leading NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond. Alan opens up about early failures — including flunking out of college — and how hard labor and reflection transformed his drive to succeed in science. He revisits the tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that changed his path from engineer to astrophysicist, setting the stage ...