Chatter: The Moon, Tides, and National Security with Rebecca Boyle
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 February 2024
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We all know how superpower competition spurred one giant leap for mankind on the lunar surface in July 1969. But the story of how the Moon and its tides affect national security is deeper and wider than most of us realize.
David Priess explored this intersection with science journalist Rebecca Boyle, author of the new book Our Moon, about her path to writing about astronomy, Anaxagoras, Julius Caesar, lunar versus solar calendars, the Battle of Tarawa in 1943, the genesis of NOAA, tides and flooding, Johannes Kepler, Jules Verne and science fiction about travel to the Moon, lunar missions and the Cold War, the Moon's origins, the return of lunar geopolitical competition, prospects for a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon, and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
The book Our Moon by Rebecca Boyle
The book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
The movie Fantasia
"Massive New Seamount Discovered in International Waters Off Guatemala," from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, November 22, 2023
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:42.0 | Join me every week with Labors Jess Phillips |
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| 0:49.8 | This idea of nuance is completely their politics. |
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| 0:57.0 | Follow electoral dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:09.0 | Welcome to Chatter. I'm David Priest. This week, science journalist and author Rebecca Boyle on the moon Tides and National Security. |
| 1:18.0 | I think science and science literacy is just so underappreciatedated and really, really important in our culture and in our democracy. |
| 1:26.4 | The scientific method is one of the best ways we've ever invented to develop perceived |
| 1:32.0 | wisdom, to understand ourselves. |
| 1:34.0 | The Jewish calendar is still a lunar calendar, |
| 1:37.0 | the Islamic calendar is still a lunar calendar. |
| 1:39.0 | But the civil calendar that most of the Western world uses is now totally divorced from the moon |
| 1:46.8 | and that's because of Caesar. The moon is I think the most important physical trait of Earth we know that it keeps our climate |
| 1:57.1 | stable over millennia I really think if we look for Earth-like planets around sun-like stars, |
... |
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