PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Ennos really gets rolling when he describes how much of human flourishing through history has involved harnessing the power of spin ... The Science of Spin moves too fast to spend much time getting to know the people behind the story.
Serhii Plokhy
MixedThe Wall Street JournalPlokhy brings a compelling historical perspective to the current debate. In concise and often gripping prose, the book illuminates how history’s most dramatic nuclear accidents have shaped perceptions and policies around the world ... Mr. Plokhy’s prose crackles as he describes how the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters unfolded. (These chapters contain useful lessons in the ways leaders succeed or stumble when faced with sudden crises) ... Though his book is otherwise meticulous about facts, Mr. Plokhy puts less effort into sifting out credible health research from the less plausible claims made by activists such as Greenpeace or the Union of Concerned Scientists ... At times, the book fails to provide crucial context ... provides an excellent introduction to some of the biggest technological crises in modern history. But Mr. Plokhy has a larger mission. As the book’s marketing materials put it, he hopes to answer the question: \'Just how safe is nuclear energy?\' In that the book falls short. Mr. Plokhy wants us to conclude that nuclear power has left an unbroken trail of death and disaster, that \'nuclear accidents occur again and again.\' A more balanced account would conclude something like the opposite: Since Chernobyl—an accident all but inconceivable with today’s technology—fatalities caused by civilian nuclear power have fallen essentially to zero. Nuclear power isn’t just safe, but a life saver. Mr. Plokhy has written a valuable history of past mistakes, but not a reliable guide for future policy.
Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees
PositiveWall Street JournalIn The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration, they challenge the three most commonly cited rationales for putting humans in space ... As scientists, the authors don’t have much patience for arguments based on vague impulses. They are cool to the idea that colonizing space has much intrinsic value to humanity, at least in the near term ... At its heart, The End of Astronauts is an argument about return on investment: For the cost of a single human expedition to Mars, the authors point out, NASA could launch dozens of uncrewed missions ... In all, their book is a readable and useful contribution to this longstanding debate ... But, while The End of Astronauts makes compelling arguments, the authors mostly focus on a single type of space exploration: missions conducted by large government agencies. As anyone who has heard the name \'Elon Musk\' knows, that model now faces free-market competition ... The End of Astronauts doesn’t fully address NASA’s dysfunction ... In the days when budgets for space exploration were strictly limited by what taxpayers would bear, it made sense to intensely focus on getting the biggest scientific bang for our federal buck. The End of Astronauts makes a solid case that robots win that debate almost every time.