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SCATTERED AROUND THE US are the remnants of a space race from half a century ago.
Before they fell completely into disarray, Roland Miller decided to capture the ruins on camera.
In his book “Abandoned in Place” (available at the University of New Mexico Press and Amazon), Miller gives a glimpse of life in the areas left over from the missions that took us to the moon.
Here are some of the images featured in his book:
Miller’s interest started in the early ’90s when he was working at a college near Cape Canaveral. An environmental engineer who wanted Miller to help dispose of some photography chemicals showed him Complex 19, which launched the Gemini missions, NASA’s second round of manned spaceflight projects. “It was immediately clear to me that I wanted to photograph it,” Miller told Business Insider.
Although it wasn’t easy getting permission to run around on deactivated bases on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Miller was persistent. “It was obvious that it was already pretty badly decayed and wouldn’t be there forever,” he said.
V2 Launch Site with Hermes A-1 Rocket, Launch Complex 33 Gantry, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico 2006 Roland MillerRoland Miller
Miller prefers to take his photos right when the sun is coming up. That lighting was particularly stunning at Cape Canaveral, where, he said: “If the Atlantic Ocean is calm enough, it’s almost like you have two suns.”
Rocket Thrust Mounts, Gemini Titan Complex 19, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 1991 Roland MillerRoland Miller
Miller, now dean of communication arts, humanities, and fine arts at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois, went all over the country to get his photos, like this one of the pressure gauge panel in Santa Susana in Southern California.
Pressure Gauge Panel, Apollo Saturn V F1 Engine Test Stand, Boeing Facility, Santa Susana, California, 1998 Roland MillerRoland Miller
The title of his book comes from the civil-engineering term “abandon in place”, which means the structure is no longer maintained. The term is stencilled on a number of buildings on Cape Canaveral, including Complex 34, site of the deadly Apollo 1 fire.
Apollo Saturn Complex 34, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 1992 Roland MillerRoland Miller
The structures remain largely intact because they were built to withstand burning rocket fuel. “One engineer told me that with one kind of structure they’d need to develop an entirely new method of demolition to destroy them,” Miller said.
Catacombs, Apollo Saturn V F1 Engine Test Stand, Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1998 Roland MillerRoland Miller
But the signs of age on the metal structures shows. This close-up of a NASA logo from the Mercury Mission Control – the first manned spaceflight program – is striped with deteriorating paint and water damage.
NASA Logo, Mercury Mission Control, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida 2009 Roland MillerRoland Miller
Other areas show their age with foliage creeping over the structures.
Cable Way, Apollo Saturn Launch Complex 34, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 2000 Roland MillerRoland Miller
The project and its title, “Abandoned In Place”, Miller said is: “an obvious metaphor for the loss of interest in the Apollo program after the first lunar landings and also for stepping back from what I like to refer to as extra-orbital space exploration.”
Clean Room Winch, Universal Environmental Shelter, Titan Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 2006 Roland MillerRoland Miller
His mission with the book is to get people as interested in space exploration as they were back in the 1960s. He’d love to see plans to go back to the moon, or Mars.
Blast Door, Apollo Saturn Complex 37B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 1991 Roland MillerRoland Miller
“I hope we’ll get back to the moon in my lifetime.”
Blockhouse, Apollo Saturn Complex 37, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 1992 Roland MillerRoland Miller
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One environmentally useful feature of traffic in several Chinese cities is designated networks of cycle lanes, on which cyclists and people using battery-powered autobikes which can travel at speeds up to 30 kph make their way to and from work daily. The manufacture of autobikes has become quite a big industry in China. Owners plug in the easily removable batteries in their homes before retiring for the night. There is a lesson for Ireland and other car-clogged societies.
@Jumperoo: No. Encourage active people from different income groups to go to work on battery bikes, and reduce air pollution. Vehicle traffic congestion has made the incidence of bronchial disorders and cancer too high for Chinese society to endure.
@Dub_Right: my point is that bicycles have always been so widely used in China and other such places because over the years, most of the people couldn’t afford anything else. So unless you drive (no pun intended) us back to those levels too, you’re never going to compare like with like. How do you know, for example, that as the Chinese provide these facilities for bikes, they’re not actually thinking ‘wouldn’t it be great if we were all so much better off that we needed more facilities for cars instead’?
@Jumperoo: Chinese cities are in deep trouble with the level of air pollution and serious respiratory illness from road traffic pollution, single car use is not a solution and should be banned
I have every faith in the Chinese authorities in tandem with the state police quickly getting to grips with this insidious capitalist threat to public safety.
@samdithers: Don’t mind if I do. Since my last comment about being a vulnerable pedestrian about two weeks ago, I have had several more near-misses and one scrape from cyclists
Living here in Beijing.. bikes are so easy to hire and abandon. Where I’m living you have to move them or step over them to stay on the footpath… given the madness of the driving, walking on the road is not an option!
Great initiative, lots more people in Beijing using bikes, lived here in 2002/3/4 and it was all bikes. Returned for three years in 2014 and it was all cars and electric scooters. This initiative is only up and running 6 months, it will take time but is a positive in what is a traffic congested city.
I was in China recently and I have a lot of respect for their respect of public property, these bikes for the most part are well looked after and not vandalised, they’re light and mobile and easily accessible. Our ones weight a tonne, have to be locked down at stations and still find their way into rivers. The problem is the Chinese have different manners to us, they will literally cycle straight into you, the idea that bikes go on the road and pedestrians on the footpaths is non existent and admittedly the wild driving on the roads make them an unsafe place for bikes. It’s a pity there’s no ideal solution but it’s frustrating having them cycle into you
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