[ad_1]
<div _ngcontent-c16 = "" innerhtml = "
In a large-scale interview about the publication of his latest book, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained to me why we have not been back on the moon; why asteroids pose a greater threat than hostile T; and why it will probably take another two decades to put a human on Mars.
Famous color photograph of the shooting "Trinity", the first nuclear explosion.Credit: Jack W. Aeby, July 16, 1945, civilian worker at Los Alamos Laboratory, working under the umbrella of the Manhattan Project. Via Wikipedia.
In "Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Army", Tyson and Avis Lang recount the often complicit relationship between physics, astronomy, astrophysics and the development of military and defense technologies. Their seemingly disparate quest for the latest technologies has long led to a marriage that is often extraordinarily successful, if not difficult. And while technology can flow in both directions, astronomical technology is more likely to be captured and funded by defense researchers than the other way around.
Such complicity is not new.
From ancient Greece, astronomers and warriors have often made strange bedfellows. The Greek mathematician Archimedes imagined a way to use the Sun to attack enemy Roman ships in the port of Syracuse from 213 AD.
As the authors of this new work-note with exquisite research, astrophysicists and military planners are concerned with many of the same things: multi-spectral detection, telemetry, tracking, imagery, ground, nuclear fusion and access to space.
"Astrophysicists do not make weapons, but defense and astrophysics have overlapping interests," said Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York.
According to Tyson, the formation of empires goes back hundreds and thousands of years and requires knowledge of navigation. Someone needed to understand the Sun, the Moon and the stars and how they gave you information about your position on Earth, he says.
In the end, such exploration has led us to explore our solar system with both astronauts and humans. In fact, next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. But humans have not set foot since 1972.
As for why?
According to Tyson, there is currently no geopolitical motivation to send humans back to the moon. In 1969, he said, we were at war and when you are at war, money flows like rivers.
All the people who assumed that because we were on the moon in 1969, we would then be on Mars in 1980 had no idea why we went to the moon, says Tyson.
Accessory to the warCourtesy: W.W. Norton
As for Mars?
If China puts military bases on Mars, then we would be on Mars in ten months Tyson says a little ironic. "A month to finance, build and design our spaceship and 9 months to get there," said Tyson. "But until then, it's a science fiction topic."
To what extent is it likely that we need a planetary defense to defend ourselves against hostile E.T.
Before protecting us from potentially hostile extraterrestrials, says Tyson, we should at least protect ourselves from asteroids. From this exercise, we can learn to protect ourselves against the evil E.T., he says.
"But we hope that E.T. does not treat us as we know, we treat each other Said Tyson.
And although Tyson says he does not know anyone in the defense sector who is currently thinking about how to defend himself against an alien attack, he says it's probably because no one would have a clue about his weaponry super advanced.
As we are constantly reminded of the accessory to war, the acquisition of scientific knowledge and technology is a multigenerational enterprise. Despite significant technological advances over the past century, we still ask fundamental questions about the universe.
One of the big astrophysical questions of the early twentieth century was how do the stars work?
In another case of scientific overlap, the Manhattan World War II project to build a nuclear weapon also helped astrophysicists better understand stellar processes. Tyson says that such research has proven fundamental to our understanding of the fusion of hydrogen in the stars.
"The fusion of hydrogen is what happens inside the H bombs," said Tyson. "The difference is that the sun controls its hydrogen fusion; the H bomb does not do it.
In the late 1950s, largely because of data from nuclear testing, the authors wrote that astrophysicists finally had an idea of "what subatomic particles and atomic nuclei do when they collide." … ".
Due to an incredible number of atomic bomb tests on Bikini Island coupled with observations of distant supernova spectra, researchers were able to identify californium-254 as a likely byproduct of stellar supernovae. The authors do not advocate that nuclear tests prove astrophysical theory, but they astutely point out that even data from these highly destructive tests can sometimes be used for science.
In the end, it is a bit sad that astronomy had to come here on the shoulders of the defense efforts that often threatened our very existence. Total annual military spending worldwide is nearly $ 1.7 trillion, note the authors. As they point out, a year of military spending of this type could easily fund every astrophysicist in the world for the next half millennium.
And although this kind of dramatic change in spending never happens, in the three-minute reading era, "access to war" is precisely the type of historical, technological, and scientific book that should be widely read and discussed.
Despite a new generation of astrobiological bean counters that seem to think that life is ubiquitous, the great truths about astronomy and its related disciplines continue to reveal just how unique this Earth is.
">
In a large-scale interview about the publication of his latest book, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained to me why we have not been back on the moon; why asteroids pose a greater threat than hostile T; and why it will probably take another two decades to put a human on Mars.
Famous color photograph of the shooting "Trinity", the first nuclear explosion.Credit: Jack W. Aeby, July 16, 1945, civilian worker at Los Alamos Laboratory, working under the umbrella of the Manhattan Project. Via Wikipedia.
In "Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Army", Tyson and Avis Lang recount the often complicit relationship between physics, astronomy, astrophysics and the development of military and defense technologies. Their seemingly disparate quest for the latest technologies has long led to a marriage that is often extraordinarily successful, if not difficult. And while technology can flow in both directions, astronomical technology is more likely to be captured and funded by defense researchers than the other way around.
Such complicity is not new.
From ancient Greece, astronomers and warriors have often made strange bedfellows. The Greek mathematician Archimedes imagined a way to use the Sun to attack enemy Roman ships in the port of Syracuse from 213 AD.
As the authors of this new work-note with exquisite research, astrophysicists and military planners are concerned with many of the same things: multi-spectral detection, telemetry, tracking, imagery, ground, nuclear fusion and access to space.
"Astrophysicists do not make weapons, but defense and astrophysics have overlapping interests," said Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York.
According to Tyson, the formation of empires goes back hundreds and thousands of years and requires knowledge of navigation. Someone needed to understand the Sun, the Moon and the stars and how they gave you information about your position on Earth, he says.
In the end, such exploration has led us to explore our solar system with both astronauts and humans. In fact, next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. But humans have not set foot since 1972.
As for why?
According to Tyson, there is currently no geopolitical motivation to send humans back to the moon. In 1969, he said, we were at war and when you are at war, money flows like rivers.
All the people who assumed that because we were on the moon in 1969, we would then be on Mars in 1980 had no idea why we went to the moon, says Tyson.
Accessory to the warCourtesy: W.W. Norton
As for Mars?
If China puts military bases on Mars, then we would be on Mars in ten months Tyson says a little ironic. "A month to finance, build and design our spaceship and 9 months to get there," said Tyson. "But until then, it's a science fiction topic."
To what extent is it likely that we need a planetary defense to defend ourselves against hostile E.T.
Before protecting us from potentially hostile extraterrestrials, says Tyson, we should at least protect ourselves from asteroids. From this exercise, we can learn to protect ourselves against the evil E.T., he says.
"But we hope that E.T. does not treat us as we know, we treat each other Said Tyson.
And although Tyson says he does not know anyone in the defense sector who is currently thinking about how to defend himself against an alien attack, he says it's probably because no one would have a clue about his weaponry super advanced.
As we are constantly reminded of the accessory to war, the acquisition of scientific knowledge and technology is a multigenerational enterprise. Despite significant technological advances over the past century, we still ask fundamental questions about the universe.
One of the big astrophysical questions of the early twentieth century was how do the stars work?
In another case of scientific overlap, the Manhattan World War II project to build a nuclear weapon also helped astrophysicists better understand stellar processes. Tyson says that such research has proven fundamental to our understanding of the fusion of hydrogen in the stars.
"The fusion of hydrogen is what happens inside the H bombs," said Tyson. "The difference is that the sun controls its hydrogen fusion; the H bomb does not have it.
In the late 1950s, largely because of data from nuclear testing, the authors wrote that astrophysicists finally had an idea of "what subatomic particles and atomic nuclei do when they collide." … ".
Due to an incredible number of atomic bomb tests on Bikini Island coupled with observations of distant supernova spectra, researchers were able to identify californium-254 as a likely byproduct of stellar supernovae. The authors do not advocate that nuclear tests prove astrophysical theory, but they astutely point out that even data from these highly destructive tests can sometimes be used for science.
In the end, it is a bit sad that astronomy had to come here on the shoulders of the defense efforts that often threatened our very existence. Total annual military spending worldwide is close to $ 1.7 trillion, note the authors. As they point out, a year of military spending of this type could easily fund every astrophysicist in the world for the next half millennium.
And although this kind of dramatic change in spending never happens, in the three-minute reading era, "access to war" is precisely the type of historical, technological, and scientific book that should be widely read and discussed.
Despite a new generation of astrobiological bean counters that seem to think that life is ubiquitous, the great truths about astronomy and its related disciplines continue to reveal just how unique this Earth is.
