Tag Archives: Space Archaeology

The ‘Last Post’ on the Archaeology of Cable Ties: everyday icons

by Aylza Donald, Graduate Diploma in Archaeology and Heritage Management student

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This is the last of four blog posts I have written as part of my Directed Study project on cable ties. In this post I’m summarising my project and identifying some things I wish I had been able to investigate further.

This is my contextualisation of cable tie invention, development and spread, there are other ways to do it, but this one is mine.

When I came to write this last blog post I kept thinking about the US Marine Corps Creed which begins ‘This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine’. I’ve turned the saying around a bit so it encapsulates the process of my research. There ARE other ways of approaching and investigating cable ties, but this one is mine. The saying might have got into my head because I have spent so much time investigating cable ties in relation to military conflict, but I suspect it also has to do with my approach to events and processes, as well as my reading across disciplines, including military and technical histories, Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and material culture studies, anthropology, archaeology and the work of French Theorist Paul Virilio, who ‘writes of the military conception of history’ (Armitage 2000:np). I chose to focus on military contexts and the contexts of ‘Globalisation’, ‘Supermodernity or ‘Hypermodernity’ and ‘Hyperconsumerism’. This led me down some very interesting avenues of research, so much so that it has been hard to choose what to include in the project paper and what to leave out.

I picked three innovations which influenced the invention of cable ties and were shaped by military priorities during World War Two. The development of the aviation gas turbine or ‘jet’ engine directly contributed to what cable tie inventor Maurus C. Logan saw on his visit to a Boeing plant in 1956, which is when he identified the need for his invention. The capacity to manufacture cable ties was directly related to the development and refinement of nylon material and injection moulding technology during the war.

The Ilyushin IL-28 (Beagle) Tactical Strike Medium Bomber was the first Soviet jet powered bomber and entered service in 1949: Image and information courtesy of the Military Factory http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=552

The Ilyushin IL-28 Beagle Tactical Strike Medium Bomber was the first Soviet jet powered bomber which entered service in 1949: Image and information courtesy of the Military Factory http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=552

The ‘Cold War’, and Korean and Vietnam Wars heralded a worldwide jet aircraft design and building phase. Increasing numbers of both military and civilian jet engine aircraft were manufactured because their

low weight-to-power ratio of gas turbines and their increasingly powerful thrust made them the unrivaled prime-mover choice for all post-World War II fighters and bombers and for commercial … aviation.

(Smil 2010:96)

It is not possible to guess which aircraft Logan saw being built when he visited the Boeing assembly plant in 1956 but it is fairly likely it was a jet engine aircraft. Logan timed his invention brilliantly. More and more jet aircraft were being built, using technology which meant more and more cabling was required in each aircraft. The significance of this timing should not be underestimated. Had he come up with the idea in the 1930s it may not have been successful. Without WW2 the development of aviation jet engines would still have occurred, but would have taken longer.

Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker Inflight Refueling Special Purpose Aircraft which first entered service in 1956: Image courtesy of the Military Factory http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=53

Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker Inflight Refueling Special Purpose Aircraft which first entered service in 1956: Image and information courtesy of the Military Factory http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=53

The Cold War went hand in hand with the ‘Space Race’. The USA were beaten to the jump to get the first orbiting satellite into space when the Soviets launched the ‘Sputnik’ in 1957 (Cowan 1997:266). The USA poured money into research and development to try to catch up and surpass the Soviet space program. So not only were more aircraft with more cables built, but more missiles, satellites and spacecraft were designed and manufactured, along with more launch pads and satellite tracking stations, all of which used extensive and complex cabling. So Logan’s invention ‘caught the wave’ of both intensive jet aircraft manufacture and aerospace applications. This close association with military and aerospace applications also contributed to cable ties being subject to particular standards and military specifications.

Blue Streak British medium-range ballistic missile diagram: Image courtesy of Royal Air Force Spadeadam http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafspadeadam/gallery/historyinpictures.cfm?start=25&viewmedia=12

Diagram of the Blue Streak British medium-range ballistic missile designed during the 1950s:
Image courtesy of Royal Air Force Spadeadam http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafspadeadam/gallery/historyinpictures.cfm?start=25&viewmedia=12

The advent of ‘globalisation’, ‘supermodernity or ‘hypermodernity’ and ‘hyperconsumerism’ drove changes in cable tie manufacture, distribution and consumption. Essentially, more and more cable ties are being produced and consumed and in increasing varieties. At the same time changes in the automotive, electrical, personal computing and home theatre arenas have resulted in an ever-increasing number of ‘things’ connected with cables becoming part of the domestic sphere. There are ‘cable management’ requirements in homes and offices, as well as myriads of other uses. This proliferation is a hallmark of contemporary material culture and is related to ‘the incredibly rapid rate of technological change, which produces a situation where there is a great deal of variation in the uptake of different forms of technology’ (Harrison and Schofield 2010: 178).

My cable tie database research demonstrated the vast extent of cable tie manufacture and consumption. Reviewing company websites selected on particular criteria led to a series of ‘unknown unknowns’. I had fairly strict criteria for companies to be included in my research but I found the numbers and types of cable ties they stocked could vary from fairly basic and manageable to over a thousand items per company. I restricted the information I included, because to include details of all the kinds of cable ties would take a lifetime, possibly longer.

There are lots of unanswered questions that I wish I had time to fit into this project. I wonder how aircraft wiring and cabling was managed in World War Two, and what cable management techniques the Soviet Union used during the Cold War and Space Race. I’m still curious about the crossover from specialised aerospace to everyday life. Although it pretty much coincides with globalisation, the move into the domestic sphere must have started gradually and it would be worth investigating the minutia of that process. I started this project because I wanted to know more about cable ties. The more I have learned about them, the more I realise I don’t know. I submitted a cable ties poster to the WAC8 Conference with my industry partner for this project, Dr Alice Gorman, so I am happy that the end of this project is not the end of my cable tie research.

The Archaeology of Cable Ties: everyday icons

by Aylza Donald, Graduate Diploma in Archaeology and Heritage Management student

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This is the third of four blog posts I am writing for my directed study course this semester. In my first post I wrote about my approach to this project. In my second blog post I discussed some of the reading I was doing, while figuring out how to place cable tie development in a technological, social and political context. This blog post is about some of my data collection challenges and the strategies I’m using to address them. It’s also about my efforts to understand how standards and specifications operate for cable ties, as there is more than one kind of organisation involved in this, and more than one type of classification.

One of the aims of this project is to research contemporary and recent cable tie variations, with Australia as a case study. Another aim is to make a database of cable tie morphology and variation, including specifications, suppliers and manufacturers in Australia. The database will provide a sample of the types of cable ties currently in use and facilitate future research. It will also supplement data from the Flinders archaeology field school at the Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station, which documents types of cable ties used in this installation between 1965 and 1985 (Gorman 2016:103).

Before starting this project I knew there were many kinds of cable ties in automotive suppliers, marine chandleries and hardware shops. I was prepared to select a range of companies making and /or selling a variety of cable ties to demonstrate what is currently available in Australia. I was aware that documenting all manufacturers and suppliers and all available cable ties would not be possible in one semester: or even in one year. My intention was to categorise some of the key features of the cable ties stocked by the companies I selected, and enter them into a database along with the company details.

Some preliminary investigations into the range of cable ties online, including retail and wholesale suppliers, made me realise I would only be able document a small proportion of what was available. For everyday items that are seemingly so simple, cable ties are actually quite diverse. While it is tempting to think of them as all being the same, they are actually made in different sizes, colours and materials as well as to particular specifications, features, standards and classifications. Further online investigations into companies making and/or selling cable ties in Australia revealed far more businesses than I had imagined, selling more kinds of cable ties than I ever thought possible. On the one hand, this means making strict criteria for my database so I’m not swamped with more data than I can deal with. On the other hand, just having such a huge range is a kind of data in itself. Other contemporary material culture items such as shipping containers have become more standardised in terms of size and shape since the first commercial shipment in the late 1950s (Levinson 2006). Cable ties, which were invented about the same time as the first container shipment, have proliferated into every colour and size imaginable, with variations in materials, types, designs and features.

I carried out a targeted online search to identify companies for my database. In amongst the names of companies making and /or selling cable ties, I found some unexpected results, such as; putting cable ties on bicycle helmets to keep magpies away, stopping people from opening your suitcase when you are travelling, and a stunning cable tie ring (see Figure 1 below). The appearance of the cable tie ring, which can be made in ‘sterling silver, 9ct yellow, white or rose gold or platinum’, reinforced my idea that cable ties are examples of everyday material culture which have iconic status. There is something symbolic about being able to wear a platinum ring modelled on such a humble object.

Figure 1: Cable tie ring - Image courtesy of RPM Jewellery - Australian Made Custom Designs (http://www.rpmjewellery.com.au/shop/home.php)

Figure 1: Cable tie ring – Image courtesy of RPM Jewellery – Australian Made Custom Designs (http://www.rpmjewellery.com.au/shop/home.php)

As well as coming to grips with the database, I’ve been investigating cable tie specifications and standards. ‘All cable ties are not created equal’ and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), a US based organisation sets technical standards for many products, including cable ties. There are also military specifications and standards for cable ties such as the Aerospace Standard SAE-AS23190C (SAE 2015) set by SAE International, a worldwide association of engineers and technical experts. Other cable tie standards are also available from an independent global safety company called Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL). Some overseas countries have specific standards for cable ties in electrical installations but I have not been able to find any equivalent Australian standards. The Australian and New Zealand Installation and safety requirements for photovoltaic (PV) arrays AS/NZS5033:2014 (Standards Australia 2014), and Electrical installations (known as the Australian/New Zealand Wiring Rules) AS/NZS3000:2007 (Standards Australia 2007), are not free to download, so I haven’t been able to see if they deal specifically with cable ties. I have noticed some companies in my database use the UL standards to indicate the quality of their cable ties, perhaps because it is a global company.

Selecting data for the database has been a challenge. To limit the number of companies I have used fairly strict inclusion criteria. I have also decided to summarise some key details about the cable ties being made and/or sold, and chosen specific cable tie characteristics to focus on. Learning about the different standards and specifications has made choosing these characteristics much easier. I’m categorising the cable ties based on whether or not they meet the requirements of named standards and specifications and identifying which standards and or specifications are being met. Even though marshalling this information sometimes feels like herding cats, I think it is capturing a sample of current cable tie use in Australia which can contribute to future research.

Standards

SAE International 2015 SAE Standard AS23190C: Wiring, Positioning, and Support Accessories. SAE International Publications, Warrendale, PA.

Standards Australia 2007 Australian Standard AS/NZS 3000:2007: Electrical installations (known as the Australian/New Zealand Wiring Rules). Standards Australia, Sydney.

Standards Australia 2014 Australian Standard AS/NZS5033 2014: Australian and New Zealand Installation and safety requirements for photovoltaic (PV) arrays. Standards Australia, Sydney.

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The Archaeology of Cable Ties: everyday icons

by Aylza Donald, Graduate Diploma in Archaeology and Heritage Management student

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In my last blog post I explain how my research process involves being reflexive and writing the anthropological ‘I’. This is for two principal reasons: firstly, because I’m an anthropologist and, secondly, because researchers are always ‘positioned’ in relation to their research. I note that the ‘archaeologist as researcher’ doesn’t appear in most of the archaeological literature I’ve read, and admit that I might not have read widely enough because I’m new to the discipline.

Since then I’ve realised I need to know more about archaeology in order to investigate the technological, social and political contexts of cable ties like an archaeologist. So I’ve read an historical overview of archaeology (Trigger 2014 [2006]) and learned about archaeological theories and debates (Hodder 2012). In the process I’ve discovered there is reflexivity in archaeology: you’ve just got to know where to look, and I found that my ‘anthropological research process’ fits most closely with ‘post-processual archaeology’ (for example see Burke, Lovell-Jones and Smith 1994; Hodder 1992; 2000; Hodder and Hutson 2012 [2003]; Smith 1995).

My background reading has included returning to my anthropological studies and readings on globalisation, multi-sited ethnographies and material culture (for example Appadurai 1988; 1996; Marcus 1995; Miller 1987; 1998; 2001). These have reminded me to: not privilege the role of production over the role of consumption (Miller 1987); investigate cable ties as ‘things to be followed’ (Marcus 1995); and think of them as ‘things in motion’ (Appadurai 1988; 1996).

I’m not familiar with archaeological approaches to contemporary material culture so I used last year’s ARCH3209 Modern Material Culture reading list as a resource. Readings that I’ve found useful include Rathje (1981:52), who argues that the ‘focus on the social context of technology … is the organizing principle of archaeology’, and Meltzer (1981) whose examination of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. provides some interesting clues on technological developments in aviation in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Other resources I’ve found helpful are Frederick and Clarke’s (2016) edited volume on contemporary archaeology and material culture in Australia, Gorman and Wallis’ (2015) collection of writings on everyday objects and some of the chapters in Tilley et al. (2006), especially Foster (2006), English (2006) and Miller (2006). I’ve also revisited the work of French Theorist Paul Virilio who:

… postulates that the transition from feudalism to capitalism was not an economic transformation but a military, spatial, political, and technological metamorphosis. Broadly speaking, where Marx wrote of the materialist conception of history, Virilio writes of the military conception of history.

(Armitage 2000)

Finally I’ve read archaeological investigations of cable ties and some of the technical literature dealing with cable tie manufacturing and engineering and industrial uses. The archaeological literature contains information on cable tie invention, historical details about cable ties and cable tie patents, types of cable ties and details of cable ties recorded during a Flinders archaeology field school at the Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station in the Australian Capital Territory (Agutter 2011; Gorman 2011; 2016). In contrast the technical literature on cable ties includes catalogues which show what products are currently available in Australia (for example HellermannTyton 2011/2012; Wiremakers 2012/13) and provides information on industry standards through the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) website Engineering360. These indicate the range of cable ties manufactured for specific purposes, and the specifications required for particular industrial and technological applications.

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Figure 1. Illustration from Maurus C. Logan’s 1962 patent. US Patent US3022557 (Gorman 2016:112)

Cable ties were invented in the late 1950s to prevent aircraft assembly workers’ from hand injuries when bundling and tying cables. The archaeological investigation of Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station indicates cable tie use in these facilities was common and extensive. Somehow cable ties progressed from these specialised uses into being commonly used in everyday life. Two other 20th Century inventions may provide some clues as to how this happened. Historical work on shipping pallets (Hodes 2013/14; Vanderbilt 2012) and shipping containers (Levinson 2006) describe an exponential increase in shipping pallet use during World War Two, and a similar progression in shipping container use during the Vietnam war. The first maritime shipment of containers was in 1956 (Levinson 2006) not long before the first cable tie patent was submitted in 1958 and granted in 1962 (Gorman 2016:111; see Figure 1 above). Perhaps the Cold War and associated ‘Space Race’ were the military imperatives for the spread of cable ties from aircraft assembly, via aerospace installations and spacecraft, to the realm of everyday life. Or perhaps the Vietnam war was the catalyst for this trajectory. To consider cable tie development in terms of other technological innovations and social and political changes I intend to investigate their military uses more closely.

Reference
Agutter, R. 2012 An archaeology of cable ties. Unpublished report completed as part of the assessment for ARCH8404 Directed Study in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

The Archaeology of Cable Ties: everyday icons

by Aylza Donald, Graduate Diploma in Archaeology and Heritage Management student

This semester I will be writing four blog posts for the Flinders Archaeology Blog. These posts are part of the course requirements of ARCH8404 Directed Study in Archaeology. This first post explains why I chose my topic and outlines the project aims and proposed outcomes.

Why Cable Ties: an anthropologist does archaeology
I’m an anthropologist and for most of the last five years I’ve worked in Aboriginal cultural heritage. On some projects I’ve been lucky enough to work with archaeologists and learn from them ‘in the field’. At first I wanted to know about the cultural materials that they identified and recorded, and then became more interested in the ideas, methods and analysis they used. Eventually I decided to study archaeology and at the beginning of last year I enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Archaeology and Heritage Management.

Figure 1. Cable tie image courtesy of lossenderosstudio

Figure 1. Cable tie image courtesy of lossenderosstudio

Since starting the Grad Dip I’ve found most archaeological writing doesn’t give me a sense of who the archaeologists are, or why they have chosen particular topics to research. In books and peer reviewed journals the standard approach seems to include background research, methodology and results in detail, but the archaeologist as researcher is unlikely to appear in the text. This is quite different to the anthropological approach, which is more likely to be reflexive and include the researcher in the text as the anthropological ‘I’ (for example see Hume and Mulcock (2004) and Okely and Callaway (1992)). There are exceptions, such as Brown (2010; 2012) and Brown, Clarke and Frederick (2015), but overall it seems to me that anthropological ‘reflexivity’ is not a feature of archaeological writing, although I might not have read enough archaeological literature due to being new to the discipline. What I have noticed is that some archaeological blogs explicitly address the writer’s motivations and perspectives (for example see Dr Alice Gorman, Dr Shawn Graham, Homeless Archaeology at York University, Dr Colleen Morgan and Andrew Reinhard).

As a student anthropologist I learned that researchers are always ‘positioned’ in relation to their research. Kirsten Hastrup (1995:4), one of my favourite anthropologists, states that ‘There is no way of seeing from “nowhere in particular”’. So rather than approaching this project in a ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ style, I am including the anthropological ‘I’ as an integral part of my research process.

This cable tie project started when I saw a presentation by Dr Alice Gorman about the Flinders archaeology field school at the Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station in the Australian Capital Territory. It was several years before the start of my archaeological studies, so I was amazed to discover that that space archaeology is a thing and cable ties are a legitimate artefact study.

Alice foto frm fieldschool 1Figure 2. Cable tie recorded during the Orroral Valley field school showing tail and diameter of cable bundle. Image: Alice Gorman (Gorman 2016:108)

For anyone who is not familiar with them, cable ties are ‘one-piece, self-locking single use tape[s] with a ratchet in small open case at one end. Once the ratchet is engaged, the tie can only be pulled tighter’ (Gorman 2016:113). They are mainly made of nylon or types of plastic and some are made of metal.

I grew up making and fixing things with ‘number 8 wire’ and have also used cable ties since realising how useful they are. But I had never thought of them in a historical sense, or as items of material culture that could be investigated. I began to think about their trajectory from specialised aviation and aerospace applications to part of people’s everyday lives, including mine. I also began to consider their various purposes and specifications, from specialised aerospace and industrial uses to random everyday activities. I ended up asking Alice if she would be my directed study industry partner for a cable tie project. She was kind enough to agree and helped me work out the project aims and outcomes.

Project Aims and Outcomes

The aims of this directed study project are to:

  • Research contemporary and recent cable tie variations focusing on Australian suppliers and manufacturers.
  • Consider the development of cable ties in terms of other technological innovations and social and political changes.
  • Make a database of cable tie morphology and variation. The database will include contemporary & recent cable tie specifications, suppliers & manufacturers in Australia that will facilitate future research.

Directed study projects are required to have certain set outcomes, one of which is a 6,000-10,000 word article. For this project the outcomes are:

  • A publically accessible database of contemporary & recent cable tie specifications, suppliers & manufacturers in Australia
  • A 6-10,000 word Dig It article on the development of cable ties in the context of other technological innovations & social and political changes, contemporary material culture and the process of making the database. Each blog post will form part of the draft of the Dig It article.
  • An article for an international peer reviewed journal to be written with Alice

Reference List

Brown, S. 2010 Buggering Around in the Backyard: Creating Attachment to Place through Archaeology and Material Culture. Australian Archaeology 71: 74-78.

Brown, S. 2012 Toward an archaeology of the twentieth-century suburban backyard. Archaeology in Oceania 47(2): 99-106.

Brown, S., A. Clarke and U. Frederick (eds) 2015 Object Stories: Artifacts and Archaeologists. California: Left Coast Press. Retrieved several times between 1 and 19 April 2016 from http://reader.eblib.com.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/%28S%28ugd5rpmn0okc1buqndhfs4m0%29%29/Reader.aspx?p=1912033&o=478&u=h3EsHs%2fgPLoqtJF7nZhiHw%3d%3d&t=1461052222&h=77716714D278F0BA04B764CCAE7FC835E09C543E&ut=1451&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=2

Gorman, A. 2016 Tracking Cable Ties: Contemporary Archaeology at a Nasa Satellite Tracking Station. In U.K. Frederick and A. Clarke (eds), That Was Then, This Is Now: Contemporary Archaeology and Material Cultures in Australia, pp.101-117. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Hastrup, K. 1995 A Passage to Anthropology: between experience and theory. London: Routledge.

Hume, L. and J. Mulcock (eds) 2004 Anthropologists in the Field: Cases in Participant Observation. New York; Columbia University Press.

Okely, J. and H. Callaway 1992 Anthropology and Autobiography. Routledge: New York.

Orroral Valley Tracking Station

All the way back in February this year, I accompanied Alice Gorman on her field work at the former Orroral Valley Tracking Station in Namadgi National Park, Canberra. Also along for the ride was Rob Koch (Tafe SA) and Ian Moffat (ANU).

Of course, we happened to make the 15 hour car trip to Canberra on one of its wettest weekends since 2002. The average rainfall for February is 55.4mm – that weekend they received 104mm. The rain did not however curb our enthusiasm, we donned our rain coats and went about recording and mapping the site using differential GPS and geophysical techniques.

The Orroral Valley Tracking Station, operational from 1965, was established as part of NASA’s Spacecraft Tracking and Date Acquisition Network (STADAN). The station closed in 1985, and today is visible only through the foundations of the buildings, a ‘footprint’ left as a reminder of the past.

Over the past few months I have been partaking in a Practicum as part of my Masters in CHM. This has involved looking into the history and use of Microlock networks, Minitrack stations and Baker Nunn cameras (all used in the tracking of satellites) at Orroral Valley and within Australia. Hopefully, this will assist Alice in her attempts to record and document the site so that an in-depth understanding of its contribution to Australia’s space history can be established.

Stay tuned for my results…

Assessing Significance: Nigerian Space Programme #3

I finally completed my directed study last week! 🙂

The last part of my research was assessing the significance of the sites, artefacts and places and producing a statement of significance for each of them. I used the Australian Burra Charter to do this and its associated headings of scientific, historic, aesthetic and social value.

I have put a few reasons for why I found these sites, artefacts and places important below. There is much more to it however. If you’re interested you may find a copy of my study in the Flinders Library at some point.

So, I found that the six Nigerian Space Centres (dedicated to furthering education and space technologies) are historically significant for reasons like:

• They represent Nigeria’s determination to free itself from its problematic past through technological revolution and;

• All six of the centres have and will come to hold various artefacts that may be looked upon as historical objects associated with the programme at some time in the future.

I also assessed the significance of NigeriaSat-1 (Nigeria’s first satellite – part of a disaster monitoring constellation).

The social significance I found attached to NigeriaSat-1 was that:

• The successful launch of the satellite has come to be embraced by many Nigerian people as a central focus of national sentiment and pride: ‘”It makes me proud to be a Nigerian”’, said Prosper Sunday, a 27-year-old security guard in Lagos. “It shows our nation is progressing, we’ve joined the space age”’.

Lastly, I assessed NigComSat-1 (Nigeria’s second satellite).

I found it to hold social significance as:

• Popular terms for explaining the NigComSat-1 project by the Nigerian community became ‘debacle’ and ‘white elephant in space’, whilst one newspaper joked that ‘Nigeria has exported its electricity generation problems into space’. The satellite, unlike NigeriaSat-1 became a disappointment for many Nigerians who were left wondering why the government had spent so much money, and if in fact they had benefited from the project at all.

So that is my final blog about my directed study! This arvo I’m giving a presentation on my findings. I will tell you all about how this went next time!

Julia Garnaut

Space Heritage Sites

Well everyone the searching is over, as far as I know, and my search has not been totally exhaustive, there are five space heritage sites on national registers. I’m sure most people will guess the first one…. Cape Canaveral, but that is the only one that I had heard of. Many Cold War enthusiasts might have heard of the Newbrook observatory, but that is the only other potentially well-known site I found. That doesn’t mean the sites I found were unimportant, just not known about. Of course if you are all really excited about what they were and why they are important, feel free to find my hopefully, beautifully written and well received book in the Flinders library, as I think that is where one ends up.