Space Archaeology Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Archaeology might be defined simply as the study of 'the human altered world'. Until recently, traces of humanity's past could have only been found on Earth. But, as our influence continues to expand beyond, we must consider human activities and human-made objects in space and how they—as extensions of ourselves—impact other worlds and the spaces between. This is 'space archaeology'. Features interviews with five activists and innovators in the research and education of outer space from the perspective of archaeology and anthropology.

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- Archaeology, Human Evolution, Medical Anthropology, Science Communication

One of the most important and spectacular events in the history of space exploration was the first Moon Landing of 1969. Safe from the ravages of erosion, agriculture, industry or the expansion of human settlement, the greatest threat to the site of this momentous event - Tranquillity Base - is likely to be from a meteor impact. However, with the advent of space tourism and commercial space travel, the site of humankind's first visit to a celestial body may come under threat of a different kind - that of souvenir hunters and miners. In this paper, the historical background to the Apollo programme is outlined and the sequence of events that made up the Apollo 11 mission, which conducted the first Moon landing, is described before concluding with a consideration of the heritage conservation issues of Tranquillity Base.

- by Greg Fewer
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- Historical Archaeology, Historic Preservation, History of Space Travel, Lunar Science

Have you ever looked up into the clear night sky and thought how incredible the stars look? It turns out that not all of those lights are actually stars. In tonight's Drawing Room is Alice Gorman. Alice is a space archaeologist and she... more

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology
- by Vedat Karaarslan
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- Archaeology, Space Archaeology

Cultural heritage has been a contested topic for centuries, but increasingly so in the last few decades with the increase of international tourism, development, redevelopment, and globalization. While the most well-known and debated case of cultural heritage may be the British Museum’s holding of the Elgin Marbles, there is a vast body of other contested cases. Such cases provide fascinating windows into academic, institutional, bureaucratic, and legal debates and definitions of cultural property, rights, and heritage. However, save for a handful of cases, these debates engage solely with terrestrial concerns.
The cultural heritage value of the material culture associated with human space exploration is undeniable, but the protection of related sites and artifacts lies in legal limbo. Until recently, most sites and objects required no immediate attention, as there was a dearth of planned orbital and lunar expeditions. In the past decade, however, interest in orbital space as a tourist attraction has grown exponentially. Orbital space is also currently facing increased commercialization and reaching a critical quantity of potentially dangerous debris. Additionally, governmental plans to return to the moon and the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition threaten the cultural heritage on the lunar surface. This paper addresses the difficulties with pioneering attempts to extend protections to these lunar heritage sites.

- by Theodor Maghrak
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- Historical Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, Space, Space Archaeology

As a founder of space archaeology, one of John Campbell’s legacies is the big picture context of life in the universe. I was first inspired to investigate the cultural significance of Dyson Spheres – planet-scaled artificial structures that are held by some to be a likely feature of advanced technological ‘civilisations’ – by John’s groundbreaking paper at the World Archaeological Congress 5 in 2003. John looked at human culture as just one of many possible cultures at galactic scales of time and space, and asked how we might recognize the evidence of other sentient life. One example of this was the Dyson sphere: a solar energy-collecting constellation of
satellites that may encompass entire planets. In this presentation, I explore Dyson Spheres in their next stage of evolution – the Matrioshka Brain – and consider how human material culture in our solar system may represent the beginning of such a trajectory.
Satellites in earth orbit could be recast as elements of computronium, giving them cultural significance not only for their historic associations, but also as precursors of a critical technology – the relationship that tin cans on a string hold to satellite-based telecommunications. While this significance may not become evident for hundreds of years, the challenge is to give space archaeology a future-oriented vision of space material culture in the present.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology
- by Beth Laura O'Leary and +1
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- Space Archaeology, Archaeology of the Contermporary Past

Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, interplanetary space has become ﬁlled with human material culture. A ‘spacescape’ now exists including terrestrial space sites like rocket ranges, satellites and space junk in Earth orbit and planetary landing sites. The signiﬁcance of this material is usually understood within a ‘Space Race’ framework that emphasizes high technology and the Cold War rivalry between the USA and the USSR. However, appropriate management of the cultural heritage of space exploration requires a broader scope and this can be provided by a cultural landscape approach. The heritage signiﬁcance of space exploration is explored through three cultural landscapes which illustrate complex and conﬂicting perspectives on space: Peenemünde in Germany, Woomera in South Australia and Tranquility Base on the Moon.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Archaeology, Space Sciences, Cultural Heritage, Material Culture Studies

Our desire to protect heritage on Earth is evidenced and supported by a series of treaties aimed at safeguarding intangible and tangible items and sites. The time is ripe to create a legal framework to formalize the safeguarding of such items in outer space. Indeed, it is increasingly clamant to expand the United Nations treaty regime over an area of human endeavor that continues to bear tangible and intangible elements of cultural heritage as a result of further, even yet unimaginable, progress in the exploration and use of outer space, particularly as their discernibility and inherent vulnerability increases without rules to qualify or safeguard them. The framework proposed herein goes further than simply offering means to physically protect and preserve sites and objects of historical significance on other celestial bodies. It recommends legal and institutional initiatives to ensure that space law continues to be a relevant part of global space governance by safeguarding a much wider breadth of heritage at the crossroads of cultural diversity and human creativity. These initiatives would evidence due regard not only for present and future generations, but also for past generations of humans who, across a plethora of cultures and over

- by Lucas Lixinski and +2
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- Cultural Heritage, Cultural Heritage Law, International Space Law, Outer Space Law

Space heritage relates to the human exploration of space in the 20th and 21st centuries. It consists of objects and places on the surface of the Earth, in Earth orbit, on other planetary bodies and throughout the solar system. It represents a distinct social and technological phase in human evolution. By far the largest off-earth component of this heritage resides in Earth orbit. Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, Earth orbit has become filled with debris – over 23 000 pieces 10 cm and larger, and millions of fragments below this size. The proliferation of space junk has the potential to affect satellite services that the people of Earth rely on to deliver telecommunications, Earth observation, navigation, timing and more. It is widely recognised that some form of active debris removal is needed to secure access to space for the future. However, some of this debris has historic and heritage value. Numerous defunct satellites in Earth orbit have cultural significance for populations of Earth for their historic, aesthetic, scientific and social values as defined by the internationally recognised guidelines of the Burra Charter (2013). Such satellites include Vanguard 1, the oldest human object in space, Telstar 1, the first active telecommunications satellite, and Syncom 3, the first geostationary satellite. For these satellites, protection in situ is an appropriate management strategy if the collision risk is low. A process to protect culturally significant space objects could include an assessment of the nature of the resource, formal and informal heritage lists, an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) technical committee, and an environmental impact framework. This paper elaborates on mechanisms and concepts necessary for ensuring that some culturally significant spacecraft survive into the future. While heritage is often perceived as a constraint to development, I argues that it can be regarded as an opportunity in Earth orbit with which to test the principles needed in space environmental management and to promote inclusiveness as recommended by the Vienna Declaration (1999). It’s no longer enough to treat space junk as isolated individual units. Viewed as part of an archaeological ‘assemblage’ or cultural ‘spacescape’ which spans variable gravity contexts, culturally significant space artefacts enable end-users on Earth to feel connected to space as the common heritage of humanity.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Cultural Heritage Management, Space Exploration, Space Archaeology, Orbital Debris
- by Alice Gorman
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- Globalization, Cultural Heritage, Telecommunications, Space Archaeology

In 1979, the US orbital space station Skylab made a spectacular re-entry that, like the de-orbiting of Mir in 2001, was widely anticipated across the world. As it disintegrated, debris from the spacecraft fell around the towns of Esperance and Balladonia in Western Australia. The Shire of Esperance, tongue-in-cheek, fined the United States Government for littering. While in orbit, the space station was largely invisible. In its re-entry, however, the disembodied spacecraft became tangible, visible, and collectible, in the form of its widely scattered and charred remains. Anyone could own a piece of space if they wanted; the debris was both space junk and a precious artefact. Through these local and personal interventions after its decay, the social significance of Skylab came to outweigh its historic significance and it passed into popular consciousness as a rare Australian space icon. In this article I consider how the parts of Skylab became more than the sum of the whole.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology, Space Stations

The Australian Space Agency’s entry in Adelaide indicates a key reconnection for South Australia with its major space history. It is summarized in a novel book by Dr. Alice Gorman, South Australia’s globally popular space archaeologist from Flinders University. This week’s release of her book named “Dr. Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and The Future” works as an appropriate handbook for all in the community to best comprehend the importance and relevance of Australia’s ancient interaction with space projects. This book is published by NewSouth Books.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology
- by Alice Gorman
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- Archaeology of the Contemporary Past, Space Archaeology
- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology, Orbital Space Laws, Orbital Debris

This article focuses on the development of the Project Mercury earth station in Zanzibar during the period, 1959–1964. To historicize the earth station’s establishment, I adopt a nodal approach and com- bine archaeological, archival, and phenomenological methods in an effort to bring forth the geopolitical and sociotechnical relations that resulted in the Zanzibar station. My discussion moves from a general description of Mercury’s "world-wide tracking"network, to an analysis of Zanzibari opposition to the station, to a re- counting of the building of the station in the midst of this opposition. This earth station, not only contributed to the science of satellite tracking and telemetry, it was an essential node in the first "world wide tracking network" to rely on real- time computing to monitor a manned satellite. What is not as well known, however, is the precarious geopolitical fulcrum upon which the Zanzibar Mercury station’s precise measurements were taken. Given this, I define the station as a contrapuntal node—as a site opposed by local publics—to raise questions about the histories and materialities of other network facilities that have been built against peoples’ will. While network extensions and occupations have been structural to colonial power, Africans’ responses to and involvement in the formation of particular network nodes is much lesser known. These material relations are significant as they helped to shape early global real-time computing networks that became precursors of the internet and world wide web. As Wendy Chun argues in her crucial research on network cultures, the democratic potential of communication technologies stems from vulnerabilities rather than control. Building on Chun’s proposition, in this article I reframe the investigation of network dialectics of freedom and control in relation to the material construction of a node and excavate the social struggles that give life to global networking.

- by Lisa Parks
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- Media Studies, History of Technology, Cold War history, Space Archaeology
- by Alice Gorman
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- Cultural Landscapes, Space Archaeology

Boldly going where no man, woman, child or dog has gone before, Dr Alice Gorman has been involved in the establishment of Space Archaeology as a sub-discipline. She’s also an out-of-this world authority on space junk and the applications... more

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology

This recent discovery of a circular feature abutting the environment of ancient Meroe in the northern Sudan results in the need to review the structure's properties and what, if any, relationship it may have to ancient Egypt. The latitudinal placement and physical properties lend an air of curiosity as to the age and meaning of this particular stone-work circle. Other known structures of similar character in the region are compared. The intent is to provide a foundation through which further study of the artefact can bear fruit.

- by Avry Wil
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- Archaeology, Egyptology, Nubian-Egyptian Relations, Space Archaeology
- by Alice Gorman
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- Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, Computer Networks, Databases

This chapter discusses orbital debris from a cultural heritage perspective. It examines the cultural material related to space exploration with a speciﬁc focus on “space junk” and the increasing amount of material remains including thousands of satellites, rocket bodies, parts and piece of spacefaring objects. The author argues that the materials and design reﬂect social and political interactions with space as well as humanity’s adaptation to a new environment. The study of space heritage can add to the history of space exploration and contemporary life on Earth.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Archaeology, Satellite Communications, Space Archaeology, Orbital Debris

Out of the ordinary
Saturday invites you to discover a world beyond words with these cerebral sessions. Alice Gorman, aka Dr Space Junk, will reveal some of her most fascinating encounters as a space archeologist. Griffith Review contributors Scott Ludlam, Phillipa McGuinness and Mark Pesce will talk high-tech lives in The New Disruptors, while Adam Spencer and Eddie Woo share the wonders of numbers in Amazing Mathematics.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Literature, Space Archaeology

When thinking of archaeology, you likely conjure up images of pyramids, ancient relics, and a dusty mummy or two; but, what about astronauts and space stations? On November 27th, the Australian research council announced the recipients of their annual Discovery Program grants. Among the projects chosen for funding was the International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) led by Dr. Alice Gorman, of Flinders University in Australia, and Dr. Justin Walsh, of Chapman University in the United States. This grant was big news for the burgeoning field of space archaeology.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Exploration, Space Archaeology

Address by Professor Mick Dodson

- by Alice Gorman
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- Australian Indigenous Studies, Space Archaeology
- by Alice Gorman
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- Colonialism, Frontier Studies, Space Exploration, Space Archaeology

As the historic craft drifts towards its inevitable end, archaeologists will combine traditional research techniques with space-age upgrades to give future generations the sights sounds and smells of what life was really like in space.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Exploration, Space Archaeology

- by Jim Pass
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- Archaeology, Human Evolution, Medical Anthropology, Science Communication

Space Boffins Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson with a TinTin style headline for this month’s podcast: lunar heritage and the lost meteorites of Antarctica. Recorded at the recent Bluedot festival, Space archaeologist and co-deputy chair of Australia’s Space Industry Association, Dr Alice Gorman, explains why we need to think about preserving the Apollo sites before we return to the Moon and Dr Katherine Joy discusses her latest meteorite mission. Bjorn from Sweden provides a jingle, the joys of Lego and the Royal Astronomical Society’s Dr Robert Massey joins the fun to add to a long list of very interesting, we repeat interesting, questions... It will all become clear on the podcast...

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology, Cultural Heritge
- by Alice Gorman
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- Careers, Space Archaeology

In a recent scene familiar to many, even those not well-versed in the discipline, a researcher marked off square areas in order to catalog the layers of contents buried within. These "test pits," which were similar to the squares made at the sites of ancient cities and bygone civilizations, were based on a basic technique practiced by archeologists.

En este Dossier se reúnen ocho trabajos inéditos que fueron presentados como parte del Taller “Interacciones humanas a través del espacio en arqueología: aportes teórico-metodológicos y casos de estudio”, llevado a cabo el 31 de mayo de 2019 en el Museo de La Plata. Este evento correspondió a la quinta edición de un Ciclo de Talleres organizados por la División Arqueología del Museo de La Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

- by Reinaldo A. Moralejo and +1
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- Human Information Interaction, Space Archaeology, Arqueología Y Antropología, Interacciones Humanas

The present paper is an ethnoarchaeological attempt to investigate the way the people of Greveniti, a mountain agropastoral community of Epirus (NW Greece) were exploiting their ragged, mountainous catchment. As the basic archaeological question concerns the spatial distribution and the structural features of the buildings associated to the production activities in relation to the distance from the village, there is a special emphasis on the erection, placing and structural characteristics of any kind of structure – from houses to warehouses and animal-husbandry structures - within the site catchment. An interesting result is that settled mountain communities in pre-modern Greece were only minimally structuring their main production area in ways archaeologically visible. Contrary, in the periphery of the village, the tendency is to build every facility needed, creating second households with houses less well-build and equipped only with what is deemed necessary, with storage facilities and facilities for Small and Medium Scale Stockbreeding, often creating satellite settlements (“kalyvia-type settlements”) with loose internal organization and no communal works. These household and community “extensions” are founded through a combination of two factors: a) the distance from the main house/village (approximately ≥2h on foot) and b) the requirements of the tasks performed there.

Debris plot by NASA. A computer-generated image of objects in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Approximately 95% of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, i.e., not functional satellites. The dots represent the current location of each item. The orbital debris dots are scaled according to the image size of the graphic to optimize their visibility and are not scaled to Earth. Public domain image by NASA. Part of this attention stems from the interest in an complicated type of waste (radioactive, sometimes tiny, heterogenous) in an extreme environment. But most attention comes from practical needs: orbital debris is becoming more numerous and can damage space instruments, the satellites and other infrastructure critical for communication, transportation, energy, and military networks. It can also come down to earth and pose a threat to people, property, and ecosystems. This bibliography is a primer of the main texts on space trash from a variety of points of view, types of institutions, and disciplinary perspectives. If there are others that you think should be added, please let us know in the comment section.

- by Alice Gorman
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- Space Archaeology, Orbital Debris

Mat Kaplan: Dr. Sagan would be proud of you for, uh, for taking that approach. Just one other, just because it's k-, uh, an odd book, it's, it's an odd theme, but it's a story very well told, uh, Dr Space Junk Vs The Universe by Alice... more

- by Alice Gorman
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- Archaeology, Space Archaeology