Name: Chasing new horizons
ISBN: 9781250098962

Chasing new horizons

Shares a behind-the-scenes account of the science, politics, egos, and public expectations that shaped the New Horizons' mission to Pluto and beyond, citing the endeavor's boundary-breaking achievements and how they reflect the collective power of shared human goals. "On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long-mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation--a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA's Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune--and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA's website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world's imagination. How did this happen?

What Hacker News says

calmbellMay 2025

I highly recommend the book Chasing New Horizons to learn more about the New Horizons mission.

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greeneggsMar 2019

No, New Horizons (the recent mission to Pluto, and in 2019 to Ultima Thule) was run through APL, the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, not JPL at Caltech.

Don't confuse the two; APL is actually becoming quite a rival to JPL. I recommend the book "Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto" [1] if you care to read about some of the politics.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36031228-chasing-new-hor...

The following is an extended quote from the book, to give you a flavor:

APL had not done many planetary missions—only one, in fact—but it had an impressive, decades-long track record of building and launching Earth observation and military satellites that performed well and were inexpensive.

…

APL’s Discovery mission was called NEAR, for “Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous.” The craft launched in 1996 and became the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, circling for a year around the asteroid Eros. Later, it would even land on Eros, a bonus achievement that was not even conceived of in the original mission proposal. And to top that, the APL team had completed the spacecraft ahead of schedule, and ended up doing the mission for $30 million under budget, giving the money back to NASA.

…

[After the Bush administration tried to cancel the Pluto mission competition,] I was so mad I couldn’t see straight, and I smelled something fishy. If Europa went forward, JPL would be guaranteed to get the work, because that mission had simply been assigned to JPL—without competition—and it was also a far bigger monetary prize than winning Pluto would be. Alan speculated that JPL had worked behind the scenes to persuade the Bush administration more or less to trade the Pluto mission for a new start on Europa. He also believed that JPL had another interest in killing Pluto, because if APL actually won, APL’s hand would forever be strengthened as a powerful competitor in all future outer solar system exploration.

…

Tom decided to fight fire with napalm, calling his political ace in the hole—the powerful senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, where APL is located, and then chair of the Senate funding committee responsible for space exploration. At Tom’s behest, Mikulski wrote a sharp letter to NASA, demanding that NASA resume the Pluto mission competition …

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monster_groupJan 2019

I highly recommend reading the book Chasing New Horizons by Alan Stern[0]. It is a great insight into years of work it takes to get a mission like New Horizons going. It is a very well written book and I could not put it down until finished.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-New-Horizons-Inside-Mission/d...

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sizzzzlerzDec 2018

* Bad Blood - John Carreyou

This has been listed multiple times. Depicts the darkside of the startup phenomena

* Chasing New Horizons - Alan Stern, David Grinspoon

Documents the people and machine that explored Pluto

* Sunburst and Luminary - Don Eyles

History of the Apollo guidance computer software from the man who wrote it

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sizzzzlerzSep 2018

"Chasing New Horizons: Inside the First Epic Mission to Pluto" by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon

Fascinating tale of the history and triumph of one of the most amazing scientific marvels of the age of robotic space exploration. Nine years and 7.5 billion miles to arrive at a place that, up till then, was usually seen as a few pixels and a blurry image.

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binarnospDec 2018

All available for Kindle on Amazon:

== Case studies (US government) ==

T-6A TEXAN II Systems Engineering Case Study - Derivative of PC-9 Pilatus Aircraft - JPATS Program, Training System, Hawker Beechcraft History (World Spaceflight News, Air Force Institute of Technology, Air Force Center for Systems Engineering, Department of Defense (DoD), U.S. Military, U.S. Air Force (USAF) )

Theater Battle Management Core System Systems Engineering Case Study - History and Details of TBMCS Integrated Air Command and Control System (U.S. Military, Air Force (USAF), U.S. , of Technology, Air Force Institute , Spaceflight News, World , Defense (DoD), Department of , Systems Engineering, Air Force)

Global Positioning System (GPS) Systems Engineering Case Study - Technical Information and Program History of America's NAVSTAR Navigation Satellites (World Spaceflight News, Air Force Institute of Technology, Air Force Center for Systems Engineering, Department of Defense (DoD), U.S. Military, U.S. Air Force (USAF))

== Aeronautics ==

The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft: From Concept to Flight - XV-3 Program, Stability Issues, Army and Navy Participation, VTOL, Flight Research Incidents and Crash, V-22 Osprey (U.S. Government, Space Administration (NASA), National Aeronautics and, Spaceflight News (WSN), World Spaceflight)

Bell X-1 (Peter E. Davies)

North American XB-70 Valkyrie (X-Planes Book 7) (Peter E. Davies)

Aviation Psychology: Practice and Research (Goeters, Klaus-Martin)

== Space ==

The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job (Emily Lakdawalla)

The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation (Adam Steltzner, William Patrick)

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer (Rob Manning, William L. Simon)

Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto (Alan Stern, David Grinspoon)

Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (David A. Mindell)

The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission (Jim Bell)

== Astronomy ==

The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope (Ronald Florence)

== Process ==

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (Atul Gawande)

NASA Lessons Learned in Engineering: Marshall Engineers Recount Problems and Solutions on Saturn V Rocket, Apollo, Space Shuttle, SSME, Hubble Space Telescope, X-33, Other Vehicles and Systems (U.S. Government, Space Administration (NASA), National Aeronautics and, Spaceflight News (WSN))

== For myself ==

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams (Matthew Walker)

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway)

== If you have children ==

The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives (William Stixrud, Ned Johnson)

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