Accessory to war the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military
(2019, original release: 2018)

Nonfiction

Large Type

Call Numbers:
LARGE TYPE/358/TYSON,N

Availability

Locations Call Number Status
Large Type LARGE TYPE/358/TYSON,N Available

Details

PUBLISHED
Waterville, Maine : Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2019
©2018
EDITION
Large print edition
DESCRIPTION

993 pages (large print) ; 23 cm

ISBN/ISSN
9781432863814, 1432863819 :, 1432863819, 9781432863814
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Situational awareness -- A time to kill -- Star power -- Sea power -- Arming the eye -- the ultimate high ground -- Unseen, undetected, unspoken -- Detection stories -- Making war, seeking peace -- Space power -- A time to heal

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. "The overlap is strong, and the knowledge flows in both directions," say the authors, because astrophysicists and military planners care about many of the same things: multi-spectral detection, ranging, tracking, imaging, high ground, nuclear fusion, and access to space. Tyson and Lang call it a "curiously complicit" alliance. "The universe is both the ultimate frontier and the highest of high grounds," they write. "Shared by both space scientists and space warriors, it's a laboratory for one and a battlefield for the other. The explorer wants to understand it; the soldier wants to dominate it. But without the right technology -- which is more or less the same technology for both parties -- nobody can get to it, operate in it, scrutinize it, dominate it, or use it to their advantage and someone else's disadvantage." Spanning early celestial navigation to satellite-enabled warfare, Tyson and Lang examine the intersection of science, technology, industry, and power

Additional Credits