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For most people, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the cool uncle of popular science: he is funny, wacky and a little wise. In fact, he is the incarnation of a public intellectual like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan before him. This is partly the reason why his new book, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military, is so disturbing: Despite some backlash on Twitter, Tyson has not been the kind of person to get dirty with regard to the messy politics surrounding science. Now in a recent appearance on Stephen Colbert Last show, Tyson came out defending the proposed new Space Force.
according to Accessory to the war, Co-written by Tyson and Avis Lang, the symbiotic relationship between science and war has been around for a long time. By their reasoning, generals need new technologies to take over their enemies, and science needs funding and equipment to make new discoveries. As the book says, "The universe is both the ultimate and the highest boundary of the highlands, shared by space scientists and space warriors, it is a laboratory for the one and a battle for the other. "
One of the key examples on which the book is based is the letter of Einstein-Szilárd, in which Albert Einstein approved the continuation of the atomic bomb. Although criticizing its use on Japan and claiming to be a pacifist, even Einstein acknowledged the need to turn atomic energy into a weapon, say Tyson and Lang. In many ways, the book is a challenge for both scientists and the public: Tyson does not want scientists to persist in believing that they can stand above the world war, even if their discoveries are used to kill people. I do not want the public to see scientists as white, irreproachable saviors whose creations are diverted by a military-industrial complex. The reality is much more complex, he says.
This complexity continues with his defense of Space Force on The late show, which will take over the operation of satellites and other space projects of the air force. "All I'm saying is that it's not new, because we have space assets – military space assets – since the 1960s," Tyson said. "What is a spy satellite? It's a space asset serving the military." He went on to say that "space war" will most probably be limited to the elimination of these satellites, rather than the creation of a Star Wars-esque fleet of star hunters. In fact, he said that the chain reaction caused by the debris of a destroyed satellite could have many repercussions: "If you take out a satellite above a certain threshold, all the satellites could leave and the war could will run in space. "
Although Colbert questions the need for a Space Force, Tyson thinks it might be necessary: "Just because it comes out of Trump's mouth does not require it to be a crazy thing."
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