- Miller, Roland.
Abandoned in Place.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016.
ISBN 978-0-8263-5625-3.
-
Between 1945 and 1970 humanity expanded from the surface of Earth into
the surrounding void, culminating in 1969 with the first
landing on the Moon. Centuries from now, when humans and
their descendents populate the solar system and exploit resources
dwarfing those of the thin skin and atmosphere of the home planet, these
first steps may be remembered as the most significant event of our
age, with all of the trivialities that occupy our quotidian attention
forgotten. Not only were great achievements made, but grand structures
built on Earth to support them; these may be looked upon in the future
as we regard the pyramids or the great cathedrals.
Or maybe not. The launch pads, gantry towers, assembly buildings, test
facilities, blockhouses, bunkers, and control centres were not
built as monuments for the ages, but rather to accomplish time-sensitive
goals under tight budgets, by the lowest bidder, and at the behest of
a government famous for neglecting infrastructure. Once the job was done,
the mission accomplished, the program concluded; the facilities that
supported it were simply left at the mercy of the elements which, in
locations like coastal Florida, immediately began to reclaim them.
Indeed, half of the facilities pictured here no longer exist.
For more than two decades, author and photographer Roland Miller has been
documenting this heritage before it succumbs to rust, crumbling concrete, and
invasive vegetation. With unparalleled access to the sites, he has assembled
this gallery of these artefacts of a great age of
exploration. In a few decades, this may be all we'll have to remember them.
Although there is rudimentary background information from a variety of authors,
this is a book of photography, not a history of the facilities. In some
cases, unless you know from other sources what you're looking at, you might
interpret some of the images as abstract.
The hardcover edition is a “coffee table book”: large format and
beautifully printed, with a corresponding price. The
Kindle edition is, well, a Kindle book, and grossly
overpriced for 193 pages with screen-resolution images and a useless
index consisting solely of search terms.
A selection of images from
the book may be viewed on the
Abandoned in Place
Web site.
May 2016 