Japanese lunar heritage and the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activity.
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
3M ago
Whenever I talk to people about future plans for the Moon, it’s clear that the impacts of mining and other activities on the lunar environment are a major concern.  An aim of the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activity (GEGSLA) is to investigate good environmental management practices on the Moon, drawing on lessons learnt on Earth, but also taking into account the distinct conditions of the Moon in terms of its natural environment, and the legal and policy framework. Part of this is cultural and natural heritage.  Cultural heritage can be defined as places and objects from ..read more
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Why do we need an archaeology of space?
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
6M ago
Why do we need an archaeology of space? Haven’t we got an abundant documentary record to tell us all about spacecraft and their stories? Not, as it turns out. The documentary record is far from perfect, and even if it were, it doesn’t necessarily contain the answers to the questions we want to ask. Within a system of production, there are ideas and assumptions that are unquestioned and invisible: no-one writes about them, or records them, because they are the fabric of their worldview. It’s only later that we may look back and wonder why something was like that. So there may be no words or ima ..read more
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Space quotes by women
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
1y ago
Recently I wanted to find a good quote about space ethics. There I hit my first problem, as there wasn't much available, short of going back to primary sources and reading through huge swathes of stuff. In this process I decided that I would also like to use a quote .... by a woman. You won't be surprised to learn that most of the space quotes out there have fallen from the cherry lips of the blokes.  I thought, wouldn't it be handy to have what the women said all compiled together in one place? So I did what any academic worth their salt does: I turned to my online friends and asked them ..read more
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Between the house and the stars: the life of Varvara Sokolova who married Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
3y ago
Introduction One day I realised that I had been writing a lot about Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, but it had never occurred to me wonder about his wife or partner. Was she involved in his work? What was her life like? Most of the sources in English merely mention that he married Varvara Yevgrafovna Sokolova (or Sokolovaya). He met her in the town of Borovsk, 70 miles south of Moscow, where he was a teacher. Varvara is described as the daughter of a local preacher or priest (eg French and Burgess 2007: 21). They got married in Borovsk in 1880 (French and Burgess 2007:21). The number of children repo ..read more
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A space junk bestiary: yo-yo de-spin weights
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
3y ago
Among the oldest pieces of space junk in Earth orbit are de-spin weights from the US series of TIROS weather and TV satellites. I've been noticing them in debris catalogues for years, and decided it was time to find out what they were really all about.   TIROS 1 was launched in 1960 - just three years after Sputnik 1. The satellite is now 60 years old! TIROS stands for Television Infrared Observation Satellite Program. One aim of the satellite was to see if Earth observation from space would work, and could be used for weather reporting and prediction. The other was to test te ..read more
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Ten more ways to get involved in space without leaving Earth
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
4y ago
This post follows on from Ten Ways to Get Involved in Space Without Leaving Earth. When I started to put this list together, it turned out there were SO many more things you could do from the safety of terrestrial gravity and atmosphere! Some of these are also very compatible with Covid-19 isolation. So here are the next ten for your delight and edification. 11. Contemplate the Moon Could anything be more simple than this? There is even a special night for it! International Observe the Moon Night is on September 26 every year. But you can do this one any time of year, any time of day or ..read more
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Dr Space Junk's Pan-Galactic Birthday Party
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
4y ago
This is an exercise I created to allow my friends to join me online (through Twitter) to celebrate my recent birthday, as the Covid-19 virus has stopped all physical parties across the world. It was such fun I thought it was worth preserving!  Here it is in nine tweets. You might need a pen and paper for this. We are going to create a pan-galactic party. I'm going to stay here on Earth for the moment, but you, my Twitter friends, are going to join me from elsewhere in the cosmos.  And where might this elsewhere be? I will show you how to find out. Please take a moment to get a bever ..read more
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Is Earth's core a global commons and what does this mean for outer space?
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
4y ago
On April 6, 2020, US President Trump issued an Executive Order rejecting the 1979 Moon Agreement and the idea that outer space is a global commons.  What is space if it is not a global commons? Other such commons include Antarctica, the deep sea, the atmosphere, and cyberspace. We plebs cannot be denied use and access to these places - no-one is going to be selling us oxygen to breathe, on Earth at least, and for the foreseeable future. But as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, I don't think anything can be ruled out. (Note that the atmosphere on Mars might also be ..read more
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Australian space icon: Mr Squiggle, the Man from the Moon
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
4y ago
The impact of the Space Age was not just in science and technology - it was also in popular and everyday culture. If you were a kid growing up in Australia from the 1960s until the the 1990s, you would have been familiar with a children's television icon: Mr Squiggle, the Man from the Moon. Mr Squiggle is a huge part of Australian television history, but I'm more interested in what the programme says about how space travel was perceived in the 1960s and after. Squiggle basics This is Mr Squiggle's theme tune: Here's Mr Squiggle With lots of fun for everyone Here's Mr Squiggle, sing a hap ..read more
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Stone Age to Space Age in 1960s and 70s American sitcoms
SPACE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
by Dr Space Junk
4y ago
One weekend I was idling at home watching cheesy American sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s, and I chanced across a very interesting episode of The Brady Bunch. I was arrested by a theme that I've written about often before: the trope which places the 'Stone Age' and the 'Space Age' in opposition. The Brady Bunch was a pretty unlikely place to stumble across a critique of this, but stranger things have happened. This led me to recall a double episode of my favourite Space Age sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie, set in Hawai'i. I watched this again just as I was beginning to feel my way around my spa ..read more
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