Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier - Book Review

Whether through literature, TV, movies, or even video games, the science fiction genre continues to be a popular fictional theme, reflecting our society’s 60-year fascination with space exploration and the nature of the universe. It is therefore disheartening to see NASA’s budget a potential victim of the current sequester debate. With earth-bound issues plaguing us closer to home, it might be expected that enthusiasm for spending money on research that does not yield immediate positive, practicable results is relatively low.

In his latest book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, famed astrophysicist and space-enthusiast Neil DeGrasse Tyson enthusiastically explains the past and present of space exploration and research and fiercely advocates for future support for NASA. Elevating and enlightening his readers by instilling in them a profound sense of awe in the universe around us, as well as a purposeful sense of belonging in the great continuum of existence, Tyson sees this “cosmic perspective” as critical for the future expansive vitality of our civilization.

Following an unconventional format of a potpourri of essays, interviews, addresses to scientific communities, tweets, and assorted writings that Tyson has collected over the years, Space Chronicles’ seemingly disparate material is guided by thematic explorations of the many facets of cosmic exploration, arranged around three questions: “Why?” “How?” and “Why Not?” The variety of topics that Tyson addresses, from Star Trek and debunking alien abductions to theories of future space travel, speaks to Tyson’s enthusiasm and creativity.

Tyson’s passion, however, does not obstruct his scientist’s sense of realism, and he candidly discusses, for example, how the laws of physics make extra-solar space-travel unrealistic for the foreseeable future, and how much-publicized dreams of space enthusiasts and science-fiction writers in fact hinder real efforts by astronomers and astrophysicists to secure funding for continued exploration, as the public is inevitably disappointed by these scientists’ more serious-minded discoveries.

This scientific reality does not keep Tyson from dreaming big, however, and much of his book is an impassioned plea for future public support for NASA as well as a compelling argument for scientific funding’s efficiency. For example, all of America’s space-bound accomplishments have been produced by a budget that equals one half of one percent of total government budget. A mere doubling of NASA’s funding, he argues, would increase our nation’s scientific literacy, would provide incentives for children to explore scientific careers, would make drawing-board projects a reality, and would likely lead to many new labor-saving, innovative spin-off technologies. Tyson concludes that programs and institutions such as NASA are vehicles through which humanity can take its next great exploratory steps and which will keep our perspective cosmic rather than earthly.

Space Chronicles is perhaps the most entertaining book of nonfiction that I have ever read. Tyson is a master of serious humor and deploys it with devastating effect in this book. While the reader is entertained by his witty observations of human nature and humorous perspectives on government, Tyson continues to educate about the past and present of space-exploration and scientific discovery as well as to argue serious points about the imperiled future of the space-program and the dangerous scientific illiteracy that is rife in our country. If it is true that humans learn best when they are simultaneously entertained, there is no better scientific educator than Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Rating: 5/5