About book Space Chronicles: Facing The Ultimate Frontier (2014)
Great book! It is a collection of articles and interviews by/with NDT over the years. It did rekindle my interest in space and astrophysics.He harps a lot on the need to keep the manned space program alive for a number of reasons that I fully agree with. It is hard to keep interest alive in space exploration when only robots go where no man has gone. It takes astronauts to capture the imagination.There have been so many benefits that have come from the push to put a man on the moon that it is hard to understand why we aren't pushing on to a lunar base and an expedition to Mars. Most of those benefits were not imagined when the space program began. We don't know what further benefits might accrue by pushing on to new frontiers.Although it might sound rather like nerdy sci-fi, we do need to consider the possibility of collision with asteroids that could severely impact our environment or even extinguish higher life on this planet. In 2029 the asteroid Apophis will pass within the orbit of our communications satellites - less than 22,000 miles. It will be back in 2036 - possibly on a collision course this time. If it landed in the Pacific Ocean between HI and CA, it would cause catastrophic damage to all the Pacific Rim countries. If we are proactive, we can most likely avoid this disaster. If we do nothing, we might get lucky and the asteroid will miss us. Are you feeling lucky, Bunkie?Some years ago, Robert Heinlein observed "The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in." With threats ranging from environmental disaster to asteroid collisions this rings true. We need to move beyond our familiar and comfortable home to new frontiers. This book, a collection of essays and articles written by Dr. Tyson over many years, could be viewed simply as an anthology. Despite the temporal spread in the origin of the writings in this book, it exhibits a synergy that is as delightful as it is unexpected. This synergy reads as an exhortation to all of us, scientist and nonscientist alike, to remember that the space program is more than just putting canned apes and robots into orbit. Rather, the space program can be considered a Crossfit of technological and scientific endeavor: something that we undertake because we know only through consistent self-challenge can we be better tomorrow than we are today.
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An amazing writer full of facts and opinions. i felt captivated and intrigued all the way through.
—yepyup
nice collection of Tyson's speeches and articles.
—mackinley
