This volume seeks to explore the meaning of space artefacts, both as products of particular historical settings and as windows for understanding technological and cultural change. Seven contributors, most of whom are museum curators, address these challenges through the history of particular artefacts, highlighting differences and commonalities across technologies, institutions, professional communities, projects and geographical contexts. The essays sample the broad range of space activity - from launch vehicles to satellites and space capsules, from military to commercial and scientific purposes. They include an exploration of the Black Arrow rocket project in Britain, the European Launcher Development Organization, the Apollo 204 spacecraft in the USA, the Iridium commercial global satellite communications system, the Soviet space programme, and rocket recovery in Australia. What stories can space artefacts tell? What kinds of information and experiences might real objects convey that images and representations do not? Do they speak for themselves, or do they represent a dense sediment of human agency, culture and technology needing interpretation by experts? And, more particularly, in what ways do space artefacts originating in Cold War culture pose historiographic questions and issues that do not arise from artefacts with other histories? Questions such as these speak to the Artefacts series' purpose: To explore the overlapping interests of museums and historians of science and technology in understanding artefacts, as well as presenting that understanding to scholarly and general publics. The Artefacts Series is sponsored by the Science Museum in London, UK, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, USA - three of the world's greatest repositories of material heritage in the history of technology.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Martin Collins (Smithsonian) and Douglas Millard (Science Museum); The Black Arrow launch vehicle Douglas Millard (Science Museum); The European Launch Development Organization (ELDO) Helmuth Trischler (Deutsches Museum); The Iridium communications satellite Martin Collins (Smithsonian); Artefacts in the Soviet space programme Asif Siddiqi (Carnegie Mellon University); The Apollo 204 capsule Allan Needell (Smithsonian); Rocket recovery in Australia Kerrie Dougherty (Powerhouse); Soviet and American artefact displays at 1960s World's Fairs Cathleen Lewis (Smithsonian); The UK National Space Centre, Leicester and other UK museums Douglas Millard (Science Museum); Key issues and strategies affecting the NASM's Explore the Universe gallery David DeVorkin (Smithsonian).