Sixty years ago, a grapefruit-sized aluminium sphere with six antennas and some tiny solar cells was launched into Earth orbit. The Vanguard 1 satellite is still up there and is the oldest human-made object in space. It’s our first piece of space archaeology.
Author: Alice Gorman
Dr Alice Gorman is an internationally recognised leader in the field of space archaeology. She is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, where she teaches the Archaeology of Modern Society.
Her research focuses on the archaeology and heritage of space exploration, including space junk, planetary landing sites, off-earth mining, rocket launch pads and antennas.
She is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Advisory Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Her articles have been selected four times for The Best Australian Science Writing anthology, and 2017 she won the Bragg Prize in Science Writing.
She tweets as @drspacejunk and blogs at Space Age Archaeology.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of The Journal of Toaster Studies.