About this book:

"Space Artifacts: How Exploration Shaped Culture, Design, and Media" offers a comprehensive cultural history of space exploration from the Apollo 11 moon landing to the modern era of Starlink. The book argues that space artifacts, encompassing not just physical hardware but also images, design languages, narratives, and everyday objects, are not mere byproducts of technology but active shapers of culture. It explores how these artifacts encode values, travel across borders, and influence public perceptions of science, national prestige, corporate branding, and environmental care.

The early chapters establish the visual and narrative canon of the Space Age, examining how events like the Moon landing (Chapter 1) were staged for television, transforming a technical feat into a planetary spectacle. It analyzes iconic imagery such as "Earthrise" and the "Blue Marble" (Chapter 2), demonstrating how these photographs reshaped our understanding of Earth as a fragile, unified planet and fostered early environmental consciousness. The book delves into the semiotics of mission patches (Chapter 3) as symbols of belonging and identity, and dissects the "NASA Aesthetic" (Chapter 4), contrasting the "meatball" and "worm" logos as reflections of different eras of modernism and public design. It further explores how rockets for children (Chapter 5) in the form of toys and kits, and Space Age aesthetics in home appliances and furniture (Chapter 6), brought the future into everyday life, influencing aspirations and domestic design. The evolution of the spacesuit (Chapter 7) is presented as a study in fashioning astronauts' identity and future, while the transition from toggle to touch in interface design (Chapter 8) showcases how user experience has evolved from Mercury to SpaceX.

Middle chapters continue to track the transformation of design languages and infrastructures, moving into cinematic portrayals of space (Chapter 9) from *2001: A Space Odyssey* to *Gravity*, and exploring how "The Right Stuff" (Chapter 10) constructed a national myth of heroism on screen and page. The book examines the fascinating intersection of "Star Wars" (the film) and "Star Wars" (SDI rhetoric) (Chapter 11), illustrating the policy feedback between sci-fi spectacle and national defense. It also highlights the Voyager Golden Record (Chapter 12) as humanity's profound act of self-reflection to an extraterrestrial audience, and "Hubble’s Eye" (Chapter 13) as a groundbreaking example of image processing, color, and the public cosmos. Martian dreams (Chapter 14) are explored through the lens of rovers and robotics, emphasizing remote presence and anthropomorphism, while "The View from Above" (Chapter 15) discusses satellites, surveillance, and the concept of an "Open Earth."

Later chapters address how new commercial actors, legal regimes, and artistic practices are reshaping our view of the sky. This includes discussions on gender, race, and the cosmonaut imaginary (Chapter 16), and the emergence of Afrofuturisms and Indigenous Skies (Chapter 17) as alternative astronomies. The book analyzes "Cosmodromes and Company Towns" (Chapter 18) to reveal how launch infrastructures impact everyday life, and chronicles "The Commercial Turn" (Chapter 19) with NewSpace companies rebranding risk and exploration. It investigates "Branding the Void" (Chapter 20) through logos, memes, and the social media rocket, and addresses the impact of "Constellations Below" (Chapter 21) like Starlink on connectivity and the night sky. The pressing issue of "Planetary Commons" (Chapter 22) covers law, property, and orbital debris, underscoring space as a shared but threatened resource. Finally, "Museums, Monuments, and Memory" (Chapter 23) explores how the Space Age is curated, while "Artists in Microgravity" (Chapter 24) examines performance, installations, and SciArt. The concluding chapter, "After Apollo" (Chapter 25), reflects on climate change, crisis, and the evolving ethics of space expansion, challenging readers to consider more equitable, sustainable, and meaningful trajectories for humanity.