April 12th, 2012Top StoryThe Neil DeGrasse Tyson Book You Should Give To All Your FriendsBy Andrew Liptak
Unlike Tyson's prior books, Space Chronicles goes wide in vision and covers an impressive range of topics, from killer asteroids to NASA and its troubled history with race, to the Space Shuttle to Star Trek, ultimately boiling down to a single cohesive message: appreciation and education of the sciences is important to the future of the country, and must be an ever more important priority as we continue into the future. Top image: Blueforce4116/Flickr.com Tyson is great at staying on message: over the course of the book, he repeats a couple points early and often: a year's expenditure by the United States military is equal to that of the entire half-century's spending on NASA, which has put men on the Moon, robots onto planets, moons and asteroids, and brought us incredible images of the universe that surrounds us. Put another way, as he notes in a number of chapters, NASA's budget is a half cent on the dollar when it comes to someone's taxes. If you double that investment, the United States can do incredible things in outer space and here on the ground. It's telling that Tyson starts off in the prologue with his observations on how society works as a rational (and irrational) system, and how space exploration fits into the American political world. While it's easy to caricature domestic political parties as being vehemently anti-science or overwhelmingly pro-science, Tyson takes apart the misconceptions easily, outlining how both parties contribute to the advancement of science. The enemy isn't the right or left, but the people who don't see value in science.
There's a moral argument here as well. In an interview with NPR (http://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147351252/space-chronicles-why-exploring-space-still-matters) he notes that there are arguments that can be made for increased investment and jobs, but a major argument that's overlooked is the impact that going to space does for a culture. We raise monuments and name schools after astronauts and visionaries that bring us boldly forward, and create role models that we look and live up to. If those arguments don't work, try these points that he brings up: going to Mars might yield strong evidence for the discovery of life outside of our own planet. Venus has runaway climate change, while there's an asteroid, 99942 Apophis, which is going to come very, very close to us on a Friday the 13th in 2029, and potentially again in 2036. As Tyson notes, we have the foresight to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs. Science investment helps us get to the point where we can solve or manage these problems back here at home. I know I want someone to take a close look at that asteroid. Most heartening are the anecdotes that are scattered around in the book that outline that there is broad interest in space exploration and discovery: he relates an encounter with a janitor at the Hayden Planetarium who asked a question about physics. A cab driver that refused to take payment for a fare, and the positive and funny response from a group of bystanders after explaining that the United States spends more on lip balm than on the Cassini mission, around $300 million a year. These small instances demonstrate that the American public does look at space and science with a level of engaged interest that for the most part, goes unnoticed. Space Chronicles is a wonderful, engaging book that rejuvenated my cynical attitude towards politics and science in the United States. At points repetitive, at others too short, it's a smorgasbord of facts and reasoning that goes a long way towards justifying the pursuit of science and science education in America. It's also a witty, humorous and accessible book that's difficult to put away: I found myself staying up to late hours of the evening drawn in by Tyson's style, and even after finishing it, have a difficult time shaking lingering thoughts of what might be out there, and how we can work to discover the unknown. |
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