"Accessory To War", an uncomfortable awakening for some

On August 6, 1945, an American Air Force B-29 bomber dropped the Atomic Bomb Little Boy on Hirsoshima.

Three days later, Fat Man, a plutonium implosion-type bomb, was dropped in Nagasaki, prompting Japan to surrender.

Three weeks earlier, on July 16, scientists and military personnel working in the secret Los Alamos facilities unleashed the first-ever atomic bomb. Everyone present knew that the world would never be the same after that. "Now I have become Death, the Destroyer of the Worlds," said Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, years later, referring to the event.

This turning point in the history of humanity has been preparing for thousands of years, the result of the "unspoken" alliance between scientists and the military.

In Accessory to the warNeil deGrasse Tyson, tireless promoter of science to the general public, joins Avis Lang, his long-time publisher, to present a powerful report on this murderous alliance, centered on its history, science, and impact it has had on world domination of a century on the American continent.

The book makes reading fascinating. The story, which dates back to ancient Greece and before, and which extends to the present day, is the subject of careful research. There are many notes and bibliographic references. Science is carefully explained, with the passionate clarity of Tyson. There are forays into ancient astronomy, astrology, navigation, the development of telescopes and the many tools that scientists use to explore all the wavelengths of light, from the gamma ray radio. Tyson tells the story of space exploration and the Cold War, excelling in bringing forward advances in science and military interests.

The book's message sounds like a wake up call, even if it's uncomfortable for pacifists. War makes the world turn. It warms the economy, with governments releasing private military industries from lucrative contracts. It stimulates scientific research, government agencies evacuating money from research universities. Jobs are coming in many areas, the staff is trained, resulting in a recrudescence of technicians, engineers and doctors of science. Knowledge flows in both directions, from the university lab to the military and back. Everyone benefits from the tacit alliance. To a large extent, American science has conquered world domination thanks to the success of the Manhattan Project, responsible for the construction of the bomb. After that, the big fuel was the Cold War and the consequent race to conquer space by exploring it (as scientists see it) and militarizing it (as the military sees it).

As historian of cities and technology, Lewis Mumford, writes, "The landing on the moon is a symbolic act of war and the slogan that astronauts will proclaim for the good of humanity is at the same level. the monstrous hypocrisy of the Air Force: "Our profession is peace."

No science is immune to this, not even the most mysterious. We all have dirty hands, even though the vast majority of scientists have only curiosity for the world. Few people willingly join the military industry or the defense industry. Nevertheless, the end result is the same, regardless of personal choices or scruples: anyone who dominates technology wins the war game, pure and simple. So, if you want to be at the forefront of the technological game, at the forefront of research, you'd better work in a country where military scholarships and scientists are closely linked.

The history of the world can be told in terms of the long succession of empires that go up and down. The climb is always very similar: the military prowess, a combination of strategy and technology, determine the winners. I was surprised not to see a mention on Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs and Steelbecause it tells a complementary story – that of the domination of the Western colonizers by their technological superiority.

I would also say that the boundaries between different physical disciplines are more porous than the way Tyson and Lang describe them. Nowadays, high energy particle physics is as invested in space exploration and astrophysics research as astrophysicists. The so-called golden age of cosmology and astrophysics is the result of the joint effort of many types of physics, involving space satellites and underground particle detectors. We all try to understand the universe and the key issues in the different areas are more convergent than ever. What is the material composition of the universe? What are the secrets hosted in black holes? What kinds of life could we find in the exoplanets, if any?

Tyson and Lang show very clearly that the dominance of the United States as a scientific center and main actor of space exploration is waiting. Despite his ever-lavish defense investments, he can no longer claim dominance over space technology. Russia and, more importantly, China and India are growing strongly and China can easily claim a link. The situation is changing rapidly and if US military leaders think they can dominate space technology and have power over all nations, they should think again. These days are gone.

Tyson and Lang finish the book on a somewhat positive note, arguing that the situation is different with future space exploration. There are of course huge economic interests, from space tourism to asteroid extraction – and these are the main drivers of a new game player, private companies like SpaceX's # 39; Elon Musk and Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin, among others. If the sky was considered by the military as an inevitable battlefield and physical scientists made it their research ground, they are now considered lucrative markets.

Dance for power and control of space becomes much more complex and this can, in the long run, be a good thing for science. After all, science being the backbone of the whole, the surest way to stay on top of what's happening in space is to make sure your science is up to the task. This will require an alliance between scientists, military and private interests.

As a war in space is, like its thermonuclear counterpart, a war without a winner, it is indeed possible that the tide turns and that space is considered as the last frontier not for a single power, but for the whole of humanity. I remain optimistic that this will be the case despite our tragic past.

Marcelo Gleiser is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Appleton and Professor of Physics and Astronomy in Dartmouth, where he also directs the Institute for Multidisciplinary Engagement. His last book is The simple beauty of the unexpected: the quest for a natural philosopher for trout and the meaning of everything.

Copyright NPR 2018.