Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Trump’s “Space Force” Is “Not A Crazy Idea”

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sat down with CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett on this week’s episode of The Takeout.

Tyson joined the podcast during a publicity run for his new book, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysicists and the Military. Tyson and his co-author Avis Lang explore the long and confusing history of how the study of astrophysics altered warfare.

In July, The Takeout sat down with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who said our society was extremely reliant on space technology.

“Our very way of life is dependent on space,” Bridenstine said at the time. “The way we navigate. The way we communicate. Over-the-horizon communications. The way we produce food. The way we produce energy. The way we do disaster relief. In fact, the way we do banking in the United States of America, if we lose the GPS signal, there are no interbank transfers. That means there will be no milk in the grocery store. Our way of life shuts down.”

When asked about Bridenstine’s description, Tyson called it an “understatement,” saying “almost everything we care about in modern civilization that we think of as modern civilization is today enabled, magnified, or distributed or contributed to by space assets.”

Tyson also discussed Donald Trump‘s Space Force and said protecting a nation’s assets, and those in space is a “fundamental part of what it is to be a sovereign country.” And according to Tyson, President Trump’s proposed Space Force may an important step in that direction.

“So it’s not a crazy idea,” Tyson said. “A lot of Trump haters want to hate everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. I’m an academic; I analyze everything. And just because it came out of Trump’s mouth doesn’t automatically mean it’s a crazy idea.”

Ending the interview on a lighter note, Tyson shot down the debate on if Pluto should be a planet?

“Pluto is one-fifth the mass of our Moon,” Tyson replied. “It crosses the orbit of Neptune. This is just bad behavior for a planet.”