This week, a team led by Associate Professor Alice Gorman, an archaeologist at Flinders University, and Associate Professor Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California, kicked off an interesting project on the International Space Station. IT ISSAP is the world's first archaeological study aimed at space habitats. By introducing archaeological perspectives into space, it aims to understand how humans adapt to life in a whole new space environment.
Infographic (from NASA)
IsSAP has launched the first "Quadrilateral Combinatorial Research Experiment" (SQuARE) and creatively selected the first archaeological target for the space station, the test pit.
Similar to the method of digging up a square meter of space on Earth to understand a certain location and develop a strategy for follow-up research. The ISSAP team will use tape to demarcate areas of equal size on the International Space Station and then study how it is used through daily photographs.
Alice Gorman explains that while there is no need to dig up new soil layers on a daily basis, it helps determine how the sample area is used and how it changes over time.
On Friday afternoons in GMT, NASA astronaut Kayla Barron will demarcate a one-square-meter area of representative work/living places, including kitchen tables, workstations, logistic racks, and toilet walls.
As part of the experiment, ISS staff also chose an additional research site for themselves. From the interest evaluation record, the last "square area" was drawn on a rack in the Destiny experimental warehouse in the United States.
Finally, the project was funded by Chapman University and successfully implemented with the assistance of Axiom Space. The current daily photography program is ongoing and will last for 60 days.