![]() ![]() We no longer need the astronomer sitting next to the captain of the ship. Like navigation in antiquity, you want to know where you are, where your targets are, where you’re headed, and how to get back home. Air Force in their Space Command division. GPS was conceived, positioned, and launched by the U.S. Clarke called “the world’s first satellite war.” But 30 years ago it led to a revolution in warfare. The platform is much better served as a place of reconnaissance rather than a place of battle. ![]() So, the concept of weapons destroying things in space, certainly in Earth’s orbit, is simply not realistic. If you destroy a satellite, you’ve busted it into hundreds of pieces, which are now moving at 18,000 miles an hour and become projectiles that can damage your own satellites. What are you going to do, destroy a satellite? No. The difference is, when we talk about a “Space Force” we tend to think of weapons rather than reconnaissance, and weapons are not realistic things to put in space. By the way, we’ve been using space assets in the service of our military interests since the 1960s! This is not some new initiative. It’s to shift all space activities out from under the umbrella of the Air Force. Now, to create a space force is to do two things. For example, I have a laser and you’ve got a satellite that’s irritating me can I take you out? Does that count as defense? There’s some grey area in there but the spirit of that treaty is noble and something to hold to our hearts. But it left open the need to defend your assets in space. It’s very hopeful, just as the UN was back in the 1960s. In 1967, the United Nations prepared a treaty for the peaceful use of space. Great question! I’ll take them in reverse order. What implications does this have for the future? Is there an international effort to prevent space from becoming the battlefield of the future? In June, President Trump directed the Pentagon to create “ a space force” as the sixth military branch. He told the Doge, “You can identify whether the ship is friend or foe ten times farther away than you can with an unaided eye.” So, the telescope’s value to reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering was immediate! And it’s been used in similar ways ever since. He showed it to the Doge of Venice, and they went up into the high clock tower and looked down onto the lagoon. ![]() Galileo, who perfected the telescope in 1609, wanted to look at the sky, but that was not the first thing he did with it. And the only way you could do that was with an understanding of the sun, moon, and stars. If you wanted to know what was on the other side of the ocean, or if you wanted to dominate it, you needed to navigate your way there. This shared technology of methods and tools has been going on since the beginning of nations. Shared by both space scientists and space warriors, it’s a laboratory for one and a battlefield for the other.” Unpack that idea for us, with some examples. You write, “The universe is both the ultimate frontier and the highest of high grounds. Speaking from his publisher’s office in New York, Tyson explained how the first use of Galileo’s telescope was military, how GPS determined the outcome of the Second Gulf War, and why, despite his anti-war views, he regards the collaboration between the military and science as a two-way street. In his new book, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military, Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang chart the long but often hidden collaboration between “sky watchers” and the military, from the invention of the telescope to GPS. The host of National Geographic Channel’s StarTalk, director of the Hayden Planetarium and ubiquitous media star, he has helped bring the mysteries of space science into our living rooms. Neil deGrasse Tyson hardly needs an introduction. ![]()
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