Dr Space Junk vs The Universe

Shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction

Winner of the 2019 John Mulvaney Book Prize by the Australian Archaeological Association. 

Mark & Evette Moran Nib People's Choice Prize 2019

Shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2020

Shortlisted for the Mark and Evette Moran NIB Literary Award 2019

Shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards 2019: Nonfiction

Australian Book Review's Books of the Year 2019
(read more here)

Going boldly forth as a pioneer in the fledgling fieldof space archaeology, Dr Alice Gorman (aka Dr Space Junk) turns the commonperception of archaeology as an exploration of the ancient on its head. Hercaptivating inquiry into the most modern and daring of technologies spanningsome 60 years - a mere speck in cosmic terms - takes the reader on a journeywhich captures the relics of space forays and uncovers the cultural value ofdetritus all too readily dismissed as junk.

In this book, she takes a physical journey through thesolar system and beyond, and a conceptual journey into human interactions withspace. Her tools are artefacts, historical explorations, the occasionalcocktail recipe, and the archaeologist's eye applied not only to the past, butthe present and future as well.

Erudite and playful, DrSpace Junk reveals that space is not as empty as we might think. And that bylooking up and studying space artefacts, we learn an awful lot about our ownculture on earth. She makes us realise that objects from the past - thematerial culture produced by the Space Age and beyond - are so significant tous now because they remind us of what we might want to hold onto into thefuture.

'As charming as it is expert, as gripping as it is surprising, Dr Space Junk vs The Universe deftly threads together the cosmic and the personal, the stupendousness of space with the lived experience of human beings down here.' - Adam Roberts, author of Gradisil

‘As charming as it is expert, as gripping as it is surprising, Dr Space Junk vs The Universe deftly threads together the cosmic and the personal, the stupendousness of space with the lived experience of human beings down here’ – Adam Roberts, author of Gradisil

Alice Gorman is an internationally recognised leader in the emerging field of space archaeology. Her research on space exploration has been featured in National Geographic, The Monocle and Archaeology. She won the 2017 UNSW Press Bragg Prize for science writing. She is a faculty member of the International Space University's Southern Hemisphere Space Program in Adelaide and is a senior lecturer at Flinders University. She has worked extensively in Indigenous heritage management and is also a specialist in stone tool analysis, and the Aboriginal use of bottle glass after European settlement. Alice is a member of the Executive Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and a Councillor of the Anthropological Society of South Australia. She tweets as @drspacejunk. Her twitter account shows that she is gregarious in a way that matches her moniker.

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