ABSTRACT
Introduction ............................................................................................................820 Kinds of Material Culture ...................................................................................... 822 Ways of Recognizing and Evaluating the Signi cance of Space Material
Culture ..........................................................................................................824 Lunar Archaeological Sites ....................................................................................824 Requirements and Options for Preservation ..........................................................826 Legal Directions for Preservation .......................................................................... 828 Conclusion: Threats to Preservation ...................................................................... 830 References .............................................................................................................. 831
Space is a place few humans have ever been. It is the most recent frontier, both physical and technological, of the latter half of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty- rst centuries. In the public’s view, because space sites are often perceived as recent and technological, their material culture may not be regarded as worthy of preservation or considered as heritage. The past is usually thought of as ancient. In fact, for more than 99% of human history (about 3 million years), material culture is the only source of information that archaeologists can study. Looking at the key technological developments of human history, the rst humans to leave the planet and step onto the Moon should be in the sequence that includes the creation of complex art (ca. 35,000 years ago), the control of re (ca. 1 million years ago), and the rst stone tools (ca. 2.5 million years ago). A common misconception is that all that is important to know about modern culture and technology can be conveyed by written or photographic records and documents. In a world of accelerating change, technologies are quickly
superseded, and without recognition of their heritage value, knowledge about them can be quickly lost.
