International Space Station Archaeological Project

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The International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) is a research group working in the areas of space and contemporary archaeology. It is the first full-scale archaeological investigation of human activity in space, studying the International Space Station (ISS) as an archaeological site. [1] [2] [3] It started in 2015. The project's goals are to understand human adaptations to the space environment (especially isolation, confinement, and microgravity), to identify disjunctions between how parts of the space station were designed to be used and how they are actually used, and to show how the social sciences can contribute to improving life in space. ISSAP is led by Justin Walsh (Chapman University) and Alice Gorman (Flinders University).

Contents

The ISS is an ideal site for archaeological study because it is the first permanent human habitat in space. It has been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000, and has had almost 300 visitors from more than 20 countries. Although it is not possible for archaeologists to travel directly to the ISS to observe its material culture, the ISSAP team has developed methods that allow it to perform their investigation by proxy, especially the use of historic and directed photography.

ISSAP has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on its research since 2020. The first studies concerned crew-created visual displays, such as a Russian one in the Zvezda module consisting of flags, mission patches, toys, Orthodox icons, and photographs of Russian space heroes such as Yuri Gagarin. [4] [5] In 2018, ISSAP observed the only ISS material culture that returns to Earth, as part of an ethnographic study of the station's cargo-handling processes. [6] The team has experimented with the use of computer vision algorithms to identify crew members, locations in the space station, and objects in tens of thousands of historic photos of the ISS interior. [7] They have also used metadata in the form of captions published by NASA along with historic photos on the image-hosting site Flickr [8] to identify the distribution of different groups of people (men/women, people of different nationalities, and people affiliated with different space agencies) across the various ISS modules. [9]

The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE)

In 2022, ISSAP carried out the first archaeological fieldwork off of the Earth. [10] [11] [12] This research was an ISS payload sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space during Expedition 66. [13] On January 14, 2022, flight engineer Kayla Barron installed tape marking the boundaries of six sample locations around the US Orbital Segment of the ISS. Five locations were chosen by the ISSAP team, and one by the astronauts based on what they thought might be interesting to observe. The locations included science facilities in the Japanese Kibo and European Columbus modules, a maintenance area in the US Node 2 module, a workstation in the US Destiny module, the galley in the US Node 1 module, and the aft wall of the US Node 3 module. From January 21 to March 21, 2022, the crew took photographs of each location every day, allowing archaeologists to see the objects located in each one and their movements over time. [14] The final results from two of the six sample locations were published in 2024. [15]

Recognition

ISSAP received the Archaeological Institute of America's 2023 Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology [16] and the American Anthropological Association General Anthropology Division's 2023 New Directions Award in Public Anthropology. [17] Justin Walsh [18] and Alice Gorman [19] were both named to the Explorers Club 50 Class of 2024 for their work on the project. The publication of results from SQuARE were named one of the ten best archaeology stories of 2024 by Popular Science. [20]

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References

  1. ↑ Gannon, Megan (2017-07-17). "What Could Space Archaeologists Tell Us about Astronaut Culture?". Space.com. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  2. ↑ David, Leonard (2022-01-20). "'Space archaeology' research on the ISS will help design better space habitats". Space.com. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  3. ↑ Strickland, Ashley (2022-03-11). "Capturing the heritage of the International Space Station before it crashes into the ocean". CNN. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  4. ↑ Walsh, Justin St. P.; Gorman, Alice C.; Salmond, Wendy (December 2021). "Visual Displays in Space Station Culture: An Archaeological Analysis". Current Anthropology. 62 (6): 804–818. doi: 10.1086/717778 . ISSN   0011-3204.
  5. ↑ Salmond, Wendy; Walsh, Justin; Gorman, Alice (November 2020). "Eternity in Low Earth Orbit: Icons on the International Space Station". Religions. 11 (11): 611. doi: 10.3390/rel11110611 . ISSN   2077-1444.
  6. ↑ Walsh, Justin St P.; Gorman, Alice C.; Castaño, Paola (2022-06-01). "Postorbital discard and chain of custody: The processing of artifacts returning to Earth from the International Space Station". Acta Astronautica. 195: 513–531. Bibcode:2022AcAau.195..513W. doi: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.03.035 . ISSN   0094-5765.
  7. ↑ Ali, Rao Hamza; Kashefi, Amir Kanan; Gorman, Alice C.; Walsh, Justin St. P.; Linstead, Erik J. (2022-11-01). "Automated identification of astronauts on board the International Space Station: A case study in space archaeology". Acta Astronautica. 200: 262–269. Bibcode:2022AcAau.200..262A. doi: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.08.017 . ISSN   0094-5765.
  8. ↑ "The official portrait of the Expedition 73 crew". 16 October 2024.
  9. ↑ Walsh, Justin St. P.; Hamza Ali, Rao; Gorman, Alice C.; Kashefi, Amir Kanan (January 2024). "First Approximation of Population Distributions on the International Space Station". Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. 61 (1): 133–142. Bibcode:2024JSpRo..61..133W. doi:10.2514/1.A35686. ISSN   0022-4650.
  10. ↑ Romo, Vanessa (2022-01-20). "Archaeologists launch first-ever 'dig' into life on the International Space Station". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  11. ↑ Gannon, Megan I. (2022-04-01). "Space Archaeology Takes Off". Scientific American. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  12. ↑ Woodall, Tatyana (2022-03-29). "What an extraterrestrial archaeological dig could tell us about space culture". Popular Science. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  13. ↑ "Experiment Details: International Space Station Archaeological Project - Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment". NASA Space Station Research Explorer. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  14. ↑ Skibba, Ramin. "Space Archeologists Are Charting Humanity's Furthest Frontier". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  15. ↑ Walsh, Justin St P.; Graham, Shawn; Gorman, Alice C.; Brousseau, Chantal; Abdullah, Salma (2024-08-07). "Archaeology in space: The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE) on the International Space Station. Report 1: Squares 03 and 05". PLOS ONE. 19 (8): e0304229. Bibcode:2024PLoSO..1904229W. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304229 . ISSN   1932-6203. PMC   11305871 . PMID   39110757.
  16. ↑ "Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology".
  17. ↑ "New Directions Award Winners - General Anthropology Division". 8 September 2020.
  18. ↑ "Justin Walsh".
  19. ↑ "Alice Gorman".
  20. ↑ Baisas, Laura (2024-12-26). "10 fascinating archeological discoveries of 2024". Popular Science. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
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