Alan Stern

CSF and its members believe strongly in the exploration of space of all kinds, including commercial purposes. ”

I'm hopeful that commercial space exploration will takeoff. To really fuel the spaceflight revolution will require an investment of hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and I think that's only going to happen in the commercial sector - if there are large profits to be made. ”

We made more than just scientific discoveries... we rediscovered how much people love exploration. ”

New Horizons isn't just visiting Pluto; it's visiting this entire region. Whatever it finds, this will be a signal moment for planetary exploration - the capstone to our first reconnaissance of the planets of our solar system. ”

People ask, 'What are the scientific questions you're going to answer?' New Horizons doesn't have any of those; it's purely about raw exploration... We're not 'rewriting the textbook' - we're writing the textbook from scratch. ”

In the mind of the public, the word 'planet' carries a significance lacking in other words used to describe planetary bodies... many members of the public assume that alleged 'non-planets' cease to be interesting enough to warrant scientific exploration. ”

People dig exploration. ”

Just speaking for myself, I think the return of people to the Moon has a lot to offer for understanding the formation and evolution of terrestrial worlds; so would the exploration of near-Earth asteroids by people. ”

Liquids may have existed on the surface of Pluto in the past. ”

Competition-driven innovation and price pressure that commercial practices foster can only make human spaceflight ever more common and U.S. leadership in this domain ever clearer. ”