A Conversation with Bill McKinnon - Pluto & New Horizons 10-27-15

New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. The spacecraft was launched to study the Pluto system and, in its secondary mission, the Kuiper belt, performing a flyby of Pluto and one or more other Kuiper belt objects. New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 19, 2006, and after a very long journey arrived at Pluto on July 14, 2015. On October 22, 2015, New Horizons made a course change for a January 1, 2019 flyby of Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69. Our guest today is Professor William B. McKinnon of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. McKinnon is a Science Team member on the New Horizons mission and serves as a Deputy Lead for the Geology and Geophysics/Imaging Team. A recognized leader in his field, Dr. McKinnon’s own research focuses on the structure, origin, evolution, tectonics, and bombardment histories of outer planet satellites and bodies in the Kuiper belt as well as fundamentals of impact cratering throughout the Solar System. Today we are going to talk about the space mission to Pluto and to the little known region beyond. Conversation with Lee Presser is a weekly half hour television program seen for nearly fifteen years in the St. Louis market on Charter Cable TV.