Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military Audiobook (Free)

An exploration of the age-old complicity between skywatchers and warfighters, from the best-selling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

With this fascinating foray into the centuries-old romantic relationship between science and army power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang examine how the strategies and tools of astrophysics have already been enlisted in the support of war. ‘The overlap is certainly strong, and the data moves in both directions,’ say the writers, about Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military because astrophysicists and military planners value many of the same items: multi-spectral recognition, ranging, tracking, imaging, high surface, nuclear fusion, and access to space. Tyson and Lang call it a ‘curiously complicit’ alliance. ‘The world is both the best frontier and the highest of high grounds,’ they write. ‘Shared by both space scientists and space warriors, it’s a lab for one and a battlefield for the additional. The explorer really wants to understand it; the soldier wants to dominate it. But without the proper technology–which is more or less the same technology for both parties–nobody can get to it, run in it, scrutinize it, dominate it, or utilize it to their benefit and someone else’s disadvantage.’

Spanning early celestial navigation to satellite-enabled warfare, Accessory to Battle is certainly a richly researched and provocative study of the intersection of science, technology, industry, and power that will introduce Tyson’s an incredible number of fans to just one more dimension of how the universe offers designed our lives and the world.