The United States was at the forefront of space exploration and research during the Cold War, a status that has since been superseded by other developing nations and Russia. Over the ensuing decades, space launch and miscellaneous facilities were used, reused, deactivated and abandoned all across the nation.
Roland Miller has taken it upon himself to document these locations that were the base for the first unmanned space flights to excursions to the moon in his new book, Abandoned in Place.
The facilities photographed in Abandoned in Place portray one of the most historic and technical adventures of the last century–from our first unmanned flights beyond the atmosphere to landing men on the moon. A sense of the urgency of the space race is evident in many of the images. Signs and labels in the images reflect the technology of the era. The structures depicted also recall the darker threat of nuclear war. Some of the images describe a future that could have been if the cold war had heated up. These launch complexes, engine test stands, and wind tunnels are the Bunker Hills and Gettysburgs of the cold war. References to the Great Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Stonehenge, and other major archaeological sites foreshadow the future of these modern ruins.
The upcoming book features scenes of launch towers, test stands, tunnels and control rooms from the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, among other locations.
