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.
Read an excerpt
Environmental Management in Space - Pop Matters, 23 October, 2019Reviews
Review: Dr Space Junk vs The Universe by Jeff Foust, Monday, November 11, 2019 The Space Review
Review: Alice Gorman, Dr Space Junk vs. the Universe: Archaeology and the Future Hannah Goodwin for the Journal of Visual Culture
'Dr Space Junk is at times humorously entertaining and at times rigorously critical of space exploration and the artifacts it has left in its wake'
'Archaeology and spaceflight are two things most people rarely ever mention in the same sentence. One is associated with excavating the ground below to learn about humanity's past. The other involves reaching beyond the sky for a better human future. Nothing in common, right? Not if you read Dr. Alice Gorman's book'.
Dr. Space Junk vs the Universe: Archaeology and the Future by Alice Gorman (review) By Mitchell Allen
for the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Volume 8, Number 1, 2020, pp. 94-95
'Dr. Space Junk vs the Universe is every bit as quirky and inviting as the title suggests. A series of interlinked essays, it provides the logic, practices, and theory behind the field of space archaeology, with numerous examples of how archaeologists have been able to enhance our knowledge of the history of the space age through their work. It is quirky not only because of the topic, but because of Gorman's multidisciplinary and popular-culture approach to it—she cites everyone from James Deetz and Carl Sagan to I Dream of Jeannie and Douglas Adams as sources. It is also an important work not only for those engaged in contemporary archaeology, but for all archaeologists'.
Description
Poets and astronomers often ask the same questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Throughout human history, poetry has provided stories about what people observe in the sky. Stars, planets, comets, the moon, and space travel are used as metaphors for our feelings of love, loneliness, adventurousness, and awe. This anthology includes poets, astronomers, and scientists from the 12th century BCE to today, from all around the world. Sappho, Du Fu, Hafez, and Shakespeare are joined by Gwyneth Lewis's space requiem, Tracy K. Smith on the Hubble telescope, and Charles Simic, whose poem accompanied a NASA mission. Astronomers Tycho Brahe and Edmund Halley accompany modern scientists including Rebecca Elson, Alice Gorman on the first woman in space, and Yun Wang's space journal on travel to Andromeda. This collection reaches across time and cultures to illuminate how we think about outer space, and ourselves.
Read an excerpt of my poem for this volume
Here now the Sun: a poem for Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space
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