Alumnus becomes astronaut

St. Mark’s Distinguished Alumnus Dr. Alan Stern ’75 has spent his career studying the wonders of space, but on Thursday, Nov. 2, he got to experience that wonder firsthand. The NASA planetary scientist joined the crew of the Virgin Galactic space plane VSS Unity for the company’s fifth commercial spaceflight. A special carrier plane flew the Unity to an altitude of 44,700 feet before the space plane ignited its rocket and climbed to more than 54 miles above the Earth.  

 

During the “Galactic 05” suborbital flight, Stern conducted two experiments, including a biomedical harness to collect physiological data related to human spaceflight. He also conducted practice routines and procedures in preparation for a future NASA-funded suborbital research flight.  

 

“The success of this mission is another important step in the development of the scientific and educational use cases for commercial suborbital vehicles,” Stern said in a press release from Virgin Galactic.   

 

At NASA, Stern leads the New Horizons mission, which garnered international attention for its July 2015 flyby of Pluto and subsequent flybys of Kuiper belt objects on the far edges of the solar system. The spacecraft is currently 5.3 billion miles from Earth.  

 

Since graduating in 1975, Alan Stern has returned to campus several times, including as the 2006 Robert E. Dennard Visiting Scholar, the 2008 Commencement speaker and a keynote speaker of the 2022 IBSC Annual Conference. He also surprised faculty at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year with a special Skype call, just weeks after the historic Pluto flyby. 

 

Stern is now the second Marksman to reach space in as many years. Fellow Distinguished Alumnus Victor Vescovo ’84 flew to space in June 2022 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shephard spacecraft.