The Right Stuff: How Stevens Alumni Have Helped Power Decades of Space Innovation and Exploration

When President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "moon speech" in 1962, he inspired generations of space pioneers.

And for six decades and counting since, Stevens alumni have risen to JFK's challenge, in projects ranging from Apollo Missions to the space shuttle; the International Space Station to the Hubble telescope; Mars rovers to private space travel.

Stevens graduates have worked on the launch pads, hardware, software, systems and vehicles themselves that have sent men and women to explore space for more than half a century. They helped create pioneering satellite programs in the heat of the East-West space race, and continue to work on next-generation satellites and telescopes orbiting the Earth today.

They're also helping usher in a remarkable new age of planetary exploration and private human space flight, as well.

Aaron Cohen M.S. '58 Hon. D.Eng. '82 was one of those alumni. Cohen helped put U.S. astronauts on the moon six times, managing NASA's command and service modules for the pathbreaking Apollo moon missions. During the 1970s and ’80s, Stevens' Davidson Laboratory also conducted testing of NASA’s history-making lunar rover.

Newer graduates like Ron Cobbs M.Eng. ’12 continue to serve NASA and the space program today. And current students continue literally to do rocket science, through aeronautics classes and participation in competitions such as NASA’s Rock-Sat-C program, in which student teams design, build, test and launch experiments into space.

Fitting, indeed, for graduates of a university whose motto is Per aspera ad astra: “through adversity to the stars.”