Stenciled on many of the deactivated facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the evocative phrase “abandoned in place” indicates the structures that have been deserted. Some structures, too solid for any known method of demolition, stand empty and unused in the wake of the early period of US space exploration. Now Roland Miller’s color photographs document the NASA, Air Force, and Army facilities across the nation that once played a crucial role in the space race.
Rapidly succumbing to the elements and demolition, most of the blockhouses, launch towers, tunnels, test stands, and control rooms featured in Abandoned in Place are located at secure military or NASA facilities with little or no public access. Some have been repurposed, but over half of the facilities photographed no longer exist. The haunting images collected here impart artistic insight while preserving an important period in history.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Roland Miller is the dean of the Communication Arts, Humanities and Fine Arts Division at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois.

Roger D. Launius is the associate director for collections and curatorial affairs, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Bob Thall is a professor of photography at Columbia College, Chicago. He has published many photography books, including At City’s Edge: Photographs of Chicago’s Lakefront.

Betsy Fahlman, a professor of art history at Arizona State University, is also the author of New Deal Art in Arizona and other books.

Craig Covault, a journalist who has written thousands of articles on space and aviation, spent many years at Aviation Week and Space Technology, where he was a senior editor. He covered every US space launch since Apollo, including Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, and the Space Shuttle.

Beth Laura O’Leary is a professor emerita of anthropology at New Mexico State University. A space archaeologist, she is the coeditor of Handbook of Space Engineering, Archaeology, and Heritage.