Space Chronicles Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Rating: 7/10

Space Chronicles is a collection of articles, speeches and interviews by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is an astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium.

It deals with the topic of space exploration, its history and possible future.

In this book you can find out what inspired Neil deGrasse Tyson to become an astrophysicist and why he thinks that manned spacemissions are essential for the future of the United States of America.

Although robotic missions are about fifty times cheaper and quite succesful, however as Tyson points out, you wouldn't see a parade held in honour of a rover or an orbiter, not even for an astronaut who went somewhere second. It's because manned space-missions to the unknown are more inspiring for people - both adults and children and might motivate someone to become an engineer or a physicist and not bother with law or economics.

You can read about why space exploration is important and why NASA actually sent missions to the Moon. It's not because they'd have wanted to do research, it's because they were in the cold war with the Soviet Union and as long as there was a threat that the soviets might get there first (as they were the first to send a man to orbit and the first spacecraft to Venus and Mars and first to take pictures of the other side of the Moon) and that they might establish a military base there, the Americans had to get there. When it got clear that soviets had no intention of going there, the Apollo missions stopped.

Also there are some articles of what might motivate the US to get back on track and to the frontier of manned exploration, as for example the emerging space nations in Asia are getting close to doing everything that Americans have done.

"Space Chronicles" is a good read for anyone even slightly interested in space exploration, as it's easy to read and doesn't require a lot of knowledge about mathematics or astronomy.

It's an interesting book even if you've seen all of the interviews with Neil deGrasse Tyson, or watched all of his talks. There's still some thought's that you might not have come across yet. And of course it's humorous and entertaining while being informative.

Labels: book review, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Space Chronicles