The New Horizons spacecraft brought humanity face to face with the last unexplored planet in our solar system: Pluto. What we're learning is amazing. But, time and again, the mission almost didn't happen. University of Texas at Austin alumnus Alan Stern describes the challenges, and the joys, of the last first mission to a planet. Tell Us What You Think Take our short survey at: http://txsci.net/utpodcastsurvey About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . You can also subscribe via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/point-of-discovery-podcast/id1036884430?mt=2 or via our RSS feed: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:150441582/sounds.rss or via Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/point-of-discovery or via Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Igc5ifenl2bn7e5n2klmrwah7qq?t=Point_of_Discovery Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu