Did you know the U.S. Army once built a military base under ice caps in Greenland? Or made a model for a military base that would go on the moon? In her latest book, “Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How the U.S. Military Conquered Extreme Environments,” Northeastern University history professor and department chair Gretchen Heefner looks into how the U.S. military learned to operate everywhere from the sand dunes of North Africa to the surface of the moon.
“The book is about the surprising, unexpected ways the U.S. Defense Department acquired expertise and information about extreme environments, places that were considered to be uninhabitable wastelands (like) the Arctic, the desert, and even outer space,” Heefner said. “(It looks at) how military engineers thought about building massive facilities in those kinds of places, places they had never been before and they had no experience in.”
