Dr Alice Gorman, aka Dr Space Junk, is an internationally recognised leader in the field of space archaeology. Her research focuses on the archaeology and heritage of space exploration, including space junk, planetary landing sites, off-earth mining, rocket launch pads and antennas. She is a Senior Lecturer at Flinders University in Adelaide and a Director on the Board of the Space Industry Association of Australia. Alice is currently Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project: How Archaeology Can Transform Living in Space, which studies cultural adaptations on the International Space Station. In 2017 she won the Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing. Her first book, Dr Space Junk vs the Universe: Archaeology and the Future, will be published in April 2019. She tweets as @drspacejunk and blogs at Space Age Archaeology. She also enjoys cocktails and playing in rocket parks.

Talk: Dr. Space Junk

Erudite and playful, Dr Space Junk reveals that space is not as empty as we might think. By looking up and studying space junk across the solar system, we learn an awful lot about our own societies on Earth. Artefacts from the Space Age – like those left at the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon – are significant to us now because they remind us of our aspirations for the future. As a new race to the Moon speeds up, it’s important to think about the values we want to hold onto as humans evolve into a multigravity species.