BOLDLY GOING WHERE NO ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE GONE BEFORE

The International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) is the first large-scale space archaeology project. It is a joint venture led by Dr. Justin Walsh (Chapman University – Orange, CA, USA) and Dr. Alice Gorman (Flinders University-Adelaide, SA, AUS) together with an international team of scholars. We are studying the crew of the International Space Station as a “microsociety in a miniworld.” Our project will have positive effects on the development of long-duration space missions, and it has extended the discipline of archaeology into a new context. Learn more about us >

Between January and March 2022, we performed the first archaeology off of the Earth. Check out our blog for more information. This work was featured in numerous news articles, which you can find at the bottom of our “In the News” page.

In 2023, we received two national awards from professional organizations in our discipline, in recognition of the quality and innovation of our work: the New Directions Award from the American Anthropological Association’s General Anthropology Division, and the Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology from the Archaeological Institute of America. In 2024, both co-PIs were selected to the Explorers Club 50 as two of “50 remarkable explorers changing the world and extending the meaning of exploration.”

As the project develops, we’ll keep you up-to-date on our progress. Follow us here and at @ISSarchaeology on Twitter or Facebook!