The only way to protect the human species from natural and man-made catastrophes is to look toward space, a New York University professor concludes in a new book, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth (Forge/Doherty, August).
The only way to protect the human species from natural and man-made catastrophes is to look toward space, a New York University professor concludes in a new book, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth (Forge/Doherty, August).
William E. Burrows, founder and director of NYU’s graduate Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program in the university’s journalism department, discusses natural and man-made disasters that could destroy civilization. Publisher’s Weekly describes the book as “insightful.” Kirkus Reviews awarded it a star for “unusual merit” and called it “convincing and impassioned.” Burrows concludes that humanity risks extinction if it remains on a single planet. However, he contends the impact of these potential disasters would be reduced if we intelligently develop a program for humans to colonize space. Burrows has a ready-made institutional candidate for this endeavor: NASA, which he says has not had a world-class mission since it achieved its goal of landing men on the moon.
The book stems from Burrows’ work for the Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC), which aims to protect civilization from destruction that could result from a global catastrophic event, including nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague, and asteroid collisions. ARC is the brainchild of Robert Shapiro, a recently retired NYU biochemist and a renowned expert on life’s origins.
A former reporter for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, Burrows specializes in space and national security issues. He is the author of the following books: Richthofen: A True History of the Red Baron (1969), Vigilante (1976), Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security (1987), Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond (1990), Critical Mass: The Dangerous Spread of Superweapons in the Fragmenting World (1993, with Robert Windrem), Mission to Deep Space (1993) and, most recently, This New Ocean: A History of the First Space Age (1998), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for history.