Photo: Mobile Service Tower Platforms, Atlas Launch Complex 36B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, 2005.
The United States and the Soviet Union entered the space race in 1955, revealing the lengths the Cold Warriors would go in an effort for dominion of not only the earth by the heavens above. For a period of fifteen years, they cranked out artificial satellites, rockets piloted by dogs and chimpanzees, then finally sending astronauts into orbit, peaking on the July 20, 1969, when the first humans set foot on the Moon.
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For all of the efforts made to blast off from the earth, little was done in the United States to preserve the infrastructure that created these phenomenal machines. Across Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, deactivated facilities abound with the phrase “ABANDON IN PLACE” stenciled on their sides.
Sunrise, Atlas Complex 13, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
1992
Photographer Roland Miller found these words deeply evocative of the period itself, for what could be more American than a fertile period of exploration and expansion followed by a period of neglect?
Pressure Gauge Panel, Apollo Saturn V F1 Engine Test Stand, Boeing Facility, Santa Susana, California, 1998
The book features a panoply of architectural photographs of block houses, launch towers, tunnels, test stands, and control rooms located in secure military or NASA facilities around the nation that have little or no public access. Over half the facilities photographed no longer exist, making Abandoned in Place the only book on the subject available.
Miller writes in the book’s preface, “I was drawn to photograph these facilities for many reasons. The historical aspects make them worthy of preservation through photography. The engineering that went into creating the structures intrigues me. Sociologically, the interaction of high science and technology with the intrigue of the Cold War and the space race allows for exploration and interpretation of the political landscape of a post-World War II civilization. From an aesthetic standpoint , I am fascinated by the colors and how time creates beautiful textures, tints, and tones. From a conceptual viewpoint I find that the weathering and aging of these structures hint at the temporal nature of life.”
Saturn V Rocket moving to the Saturn V Center with Vehicle Assembly Building in the Background, Kennedy Space Center, FL, 1996
Taken together, Miller’s motivations have produced a phenomenal collection of images that contrast the past and the present, while guiding us through the history of the space race from the United States point of view, allowing us to see how quickly and easily the government can co-op technology for its own use, offering a heroic image of a world that has been discarded now that it is no longer of use.
Throughout the book there is a faith in the possibility of Utopian ideals, in the naïve belief that we cannot achieve on Earth can be manifest in dreams of outer space. As Miller writes, “The deactivated facilities also speak to a time when the United States was, in some ways, at its best. Maybe because so many issues in America at the time—the war in Vietnam, the struggling civil rights movement, the war on poverty, and other—the triumphs of the Apollo program and its predecessors were that much more significant.”
All photos: © 2016 by Roland Miller, courtesy of University of New Mexico Press.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
