"Berlin, Germany, 1930--When the Nazis rise to power, J�urgen Rhodes is offered a high-level position in their burgeoning rocket program. J�urgen and his wife Sofie fiercely oppose Hitler's radical views, and joining his ranks is unthinkable. Yet it soon becomes clear that if J�urgen does not accept the job, their income would be put on the line, and so would their lives. Huntsville, Alabama, 1950--J�urgen is one of many German scientists...

Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and scope--has expanded enormously with each passing year....

In this fascinating foray into the centuries-old relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. "The overlap is strong, and the knowledge flows in both directions," say the authors, because astrophysicists and military planners care about many of the same things: multi-spectral detection,...