What are we going to do with the fragments of the Apollo moon missions or other pieces of human technology scattered throughout the solar system?

As NASA and other organizations plan to send humans back to the moon, a new study shows that in order to preserve what’s possible, we need to see what changes the lunar environment causes to the human artifacts left on the surface: spacecraft, experiments, debris and other things.

“The material record that currently exists on the Moon risks rapid extinction if not handled appropriately in the new space age,” lead author Justin Holcomb, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kansas Geological Survey (based at the University of Kansas), said in a July 21 statement.

This research will also be applied to other worlds visited by humans in spacecraft, such as rovers, ground vehicles, and dry wind-swept crash sites. Many missions to the Red Planet have been killed by extreme temperatures or widespread dust infiltrating everything.

Archeology is the study of man and his artifacts from prehistory to the present, so, according to the Encyclopedia of Global Archeology, space archeology in a broad sense is “the study of the material culture associated with space exploration since the twentieth century.” The first rocket experiments now associated with space exploration began in the 1920s, so space artifacts in this judgment are nearly a century old.

Of course, NASA is doing its best. The agency has called for a comprehensive study of the moon in the past, in addition to the many space museums that preserve artifacts returned to Earth. Thinking about the future, he carefully documents his activities on other worlds. Additionally, NASA and many other international space agencies adhere to United Nations treaties that set agreements on how to explore space; It meant respecting not only the people, but also the artifacts that those people left behind.

Australian space archaeologist Alice Gorman is one of the pioneers of space archaeology and is co-chair of the International Space Station Artifact Survey, among many other projects. References in a 2021 peer-reviewed article on the space station project indicate that the term “space archaeology” became popular at the turn of the millennium. (Perhaps the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11, which crashed in 1969 and the first manned Moon landing mission to crash in 1999, had something to do with it.)

However, some scholars define “space archaeology” as observing archeology from space using satellites. A prime example of this is National Geographic researcher Sarah Parkak, a professor of anthropology and archaeologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. But the University of Kansas Holcomb refers to “space archaeology” as the preservation of spaceflight artifacts.

Holcomb and his team propose a new field of space archaeology called “planetary geoarchaeology,” which refers to how Earth’s cultural and natural processes (like Earth) affect artifacts on the surface.

Artifacts such as satellites or spaceships flying to another world cannot be considered objects of planetary geoarchaeology if they are orbiting in space. However, the landing or landing sites of these machines will likely be taken into account. The Association for Satellite Concerns estimates that there are more than 6,700 satellites currently orbiting the Earth, and there are numerous other spacecraft currently flying in space or on other worlds.

NASA plans to return humans to the moon before 2025 or 2026 as part of the Artemis 3 mission if the program continues on schedule. (The manned lunar mission Artemis 2 is currently scheduled for launch in November 2024.) Holcomb said the new Artemis program renews calls to keep the Apollo artifacts in place. At one time, this issue even caused a bill to be discussed in the US Congress in 2013.

“I think there’s a risk to this legacy on the Moon,” Holcomb said, for the next generation of lunar explorers. Most of the world’s countries are signatories to the UN Outer Space Treaty, which sets international norms for lunar exploration, but NASA’s Artemis Treaties for lunar operations and peaceful cooperation in space include only 27 countries. Russia and China are forming their own new space alliance, recently signing Venezuela. That’s not even to mention the number of private companies that can now independently explore the lunar realms.

Holcomb would like to see archaeologists involved in Moon and Mars surveys specifically to protect key sites, such as the Apollo 11 landing site on Sea of ​​Tranquility or the pioneering NASA Viking 1 site on Chryse Planitia on Mars.

In addition to continuing to monitor objects, update laws, and monitor environmental impacts on spacecraft, it urges the community to keep a close eye on artifacts at risk. Mars rovers and spacecraft are particularly prone to burial, making them inaccessible for future scientific research.

The main purpose of the article is, as the text states, “to encourage further research examining human-environment interactions in space.” It was published June 11 in the peer-reviewed journal Geoarchaeology. Source