The infrastructure of humanity's journey into space may only be decades old, but some of it has already been lost. A new generation of "space archaeologists" are scrambling to save what's left.

Space is being commercialised on a scale unseen before. Faced by powerful commercial and political forces and with scant legal protections, artefacts that tell the story of our species' journey into space are in danger of being lost – both in orbit and down here on Earth.

Like Stonehenge, these are irreplaceable artefacts and sites that have a timeless significance to humanity because they represent an essential stage in the evolution of our species. They are often also expressions of national pride because of the industrial and scientific effort needed to achieve them. Sometimes they are also memorials to those who died in the course of ambitious space programmes.

They also have another use. Studying these artefacts and sites helps researchers better understand how astronauts interact with new technology, adapt to new environments and develop new cultural practices. The conclusions of researchers can influence the design of future spacecraft and help future space missions succeed.

Can a new generation of pioneering space archaeologists like Alice Gorman and Justin Walsh help save our space heritage for coming generations, and how might their work change space exploration in the future?

On 15 January 2025, the World Monuments Fund's Watch List of 25 threatened heritage sites was released, surprising many by including the Moon, with a focus on the Apollo 11 landing site, in addition to the endangered sites on Earth.

It is rather ironic then, that same day, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on board a SpaceX rocket to lay "the groundwork for the future of commercial exploration" of the Moon, according to the company. Firefly became the second commercial company to land without difficulty or damage on the Moon when Blue Ghost safely touched down around 30 miles (50 km) away from the site of the Nasa LCROSS impactor, 90 miles (150km) away from the Soviet Luna 24 probe site, and in the neighbouring lunar sea, vast plains of solidified lava, to where Neil Armstrong's footprints can be found.

"We don't know yet how to physically operate on the Moon," says space archaeologist Justin Walsh, a professor at Chapman University in California. "Any mission that approaches or enters one of those historic sites is going to have consequences that we can't yet foresee. Whatever precautions we can take, we really must take to keep that damage to a minimum."

But it isn't just sites on the Moon that experts are worried about. Elon Musk wants Nasa to deorbit and possibly destroy the historically significant International Space Station sooner than the space agency intends.

"The window of time we must get procedures and protocols accepted by the international space community is closing," says Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist and associate professor at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

Three years ago, Nasa astronaut Kayla Barron conducted the first ever archaeological fieldwork outside the Earth (and in zero gravity) while orbiting the planet at about a height of 250 miles (400km). On 14 January 2022, she used bright yellow adhesive tape to mark out the corners of 1 sq m (10.7 sq ft) on a science rack in a module of the ISS – like an archaeological trench – and repeated the process in five other locations, ranging from the galley to the toilet.

Archaeology is a "dirt discipline", says Gorman in her book Dr Space Junk v The Universe. Archaeologists dig test pits to reveal a "snapshot" of a site's history. On a space station, that is impossible.

Instead, Barron and her colleagues used digital cameras to photograph each square every day for 60 days. The goal of the exercise was to reveal how these spaces were being used, and how their use changed over time.

"I was here in Los Angeles and Alice [Gorman] was in rural New South Wales in Australia, we were........

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