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The exploration of space is a Cold War phenomenon and is recent material culture which archaeologists do not routinely consider. Extending the archaeological gaze into space creates a new perspective of Earth: its cultural system which reaches into the solar system. This chapter provides a definition and discussion of space archaeology. The assemblage continues to grow especially in Earth’s orbit and on celestial bodies (e.g. Moon). All space objects exist within the cultural landscape of Earth’s multiple facilities such as launch sites, research facilities, etc. The landscape is designed, associative, and organically evolving. It is an extremely technological collection that includes in situ scientific experiments and satellites. Proveniences are complex. Artefacts can exist in relatively predictable orbits. Much of this archaeological record benefits from the benign effects of the space environment and its remoteness, but lie within a contested grey legal area in terms of its international preservation.

This chapter expands on the notion of Apollo Culture in greater detail, beginning with an historic context of the Cold War era. It takes a look at the Sputnik and Vanguard launches during the IGY (International Geophysical Year) Space Race, and explains how these political and social events of the mid-20th century set the stage for the rise and fall of the Apollo program- which required a combination of engineering, marketing, and scientific efforts by the federal government.

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In this paper we showcase the importance of understanding and measuring interdisciplinarity and other -disciplinarity concepts for all scientists, the role social sciences have historically played in NASA research and missions, the sparsity of social science interdisciplinarity in space and planetary sciences, including astronomy and astrophysics, while there is an imperative necessity for it, and the example of interdisciplinarity between social sciences and astrobiology. Ultimately we give voice to the scientists across all fields with respect to their needs, aspirations and experiences in their interdisciplinary work with social sciences through an ad-hoc survey we conducted within the Astro2020 Decadal Survey scientific community.