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Full Description
A pioneering space archaeologist explores artifacts left behind in space and on Earth, from moon dust to Elon Musk's red sports car.Alice Gorman is a space archaeologist: she examines the artifacts of human encounters with space. These objects, left behind on Earth and in space, can be massive (dead satellites in eternal orbit) or tiny (discarded zip ties around a defunct space antenna). They can be bold (an American flag on the moon) or hopeful (messages from Earth sent into deep space). They raise interesting questions: Why did Elon Musk feel compelled to send a red Tesla into space? What accounts for the multiple rocket-themed playgrounds constructed after the Russians launched Sputnik? Gorman—affectionately known as "Dr Space Junk" —takes readers on a journey through the solar system and beyond, deploying space artifacts, historical explorations, and even the occasional cocktail recipe in search of the ways that we make space meaningful.
Engaging and erudite, Gorman recounts her background as a (nonspace) archaeologist and how she became interested in space artifacts. She shows us her own piece of space junk: a fragment of the fuel tank insulation from Skylab, the NASA spacecraft that crash-landed in Western Australia in 1979. She explains that the conventional view of the space race as "the triumph of the white, male American astronaut" seems inadequate; what really interests her, she says, is how everyday people engage with space. To an archaeologist, objects from the past are significant because they remind us of what we might want to hold on to in the future.
Contents
INTRODUCTION: LOOKING UP, LOOKING DOWN 1
On Earth as it is in heaven 3
A new era of space 9
Dr Space Junk's tour of the solar system 12
CHAPTER 1: HOW I BECAME A SPACE ARCHAEOLOGIST 16
Outback and out of this world 17
The Moon in the living room 20
Venus in glasses 23
Archaeology or astrophysics? 25
Back to the past 30
Stories from stone 33
Lying in the gutter, looking up at the stars 37
Launching into orbit 41
CHAPTER 2: JOURNEY INTO SPACE 44
1940s: a rocket and a bomb 47
1950s: waging peace in the Cold War 51
1960s: ... and all I got was this lousy dust 56
1970s: the backyard satellite 60
1980s: aiming for the planet of love 64
1990s: if Versace were to design a satellite 67
2000s: a tale of two Rosetta stones 69
2010s: the Starman cometh 73
The phases of the Space Age 76
CHAPTER 3: SPACE ARCHAEOLOGY BEGINS ON EARTH 79
The Cold War stayed for dinner 82
A space for children 87
The rocket park comes Down Under 90
The ultimate rocket playground 93
Cold War in the desert heat 96
How to forget your own Space Age 98
Valley of the cable ties 100
Artefact of the Space Age - or rubbish? 104
The story of a space age object 108
CHAPTER 4: JUNKYARD EARTH 114
One thousand elephants orbiting the earth 119
The cane toads of space 125
The cosmos in our backyard 131
Environmental management in space 135
What is dead can never die 141
'And warm with human love the chill of space' 143
CHAPTER 5: SHADOWS ON THE MOON 146
When birds migrated to the Moon 149
The children's Moon 155
The Moon of science or the Moon of lovers? 157
The future of the lunar past 160
An ephemeral archaeology 166
A descent into darkness 169
Shadows and dust 174
The many-coloured Moon 179
CHAPTER 6: THE EDGE OF KNOWN SPACE 181
The new worlds 185
The archaeology of not-quite-there 192
The ghost in the machine 198
The place defined by wind 202
Beyond the morning star 206
CHAPTER 7: WHOSE SPACE IS IT ANYWAY? 212
The 'sweet poison of the false infinite' 213
Exteriores spatium nullius 217
Who has the rights to space? 223
A planet by any other name 226
Reflecting Earth in space 229
Contested territories 234
Lines on a map 241
CHAPTER 8: FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY 244
True infinite 247
The body in the machine 252
Space marked by death 256
When life means gravity 260
The abandoned solar system 265
The Small Dance 274
SELECTED REFERENCES 276
INDEX 283
