Alan Stern’s beloved Nissan 350Z Coupe bears the bumper sticker, “My other vehicle is on its way to Pluto,” which was once actually true. The bumper sticker, however, is due for an update.
Stern is principal investigator for the historic July 2015 flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which is now about 400 million miles beyond Pluto, headed for an even more distant rendezvous in January 2019.
But Stern’s more immediate mission involves letting go of his Nissan 350Z, which he bought in 2006 — the same year New Horizons launched. And, he’s doing it for a good cause.
Stern, associate vice president-R&D for Southwest Research Institute of Boulder, is auctioning off the only car he drove throughout New Horizons’ long journey to .
“I got the idea about the time I took possession of my new car, which is a Tesla,” Stern said. “And you know, I thought, Lowell Observatory, where Pluto was discovered, we would never have been able to even do (New) Horizons if Pluto hadn’t been found. I wanted to do something to help them.”
And so Stern’s car, a red two-seater with just 77,000 miles on the odometer, went up for auction Thursday, with bids being accepted through 11:59 p.m. on .
The winner will get not only the car — delivered in person by Stern — but dinner with Stern, who was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world in both 2007 and 2016 by Time magazine.
“They’ll get a personal letter,” Stern said. “The original bumper sticker is still on it, and it is a collector’s item in the sense of space collectors’ items.”
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