Memory Chain: A Pas de Deux of Artifact

Memory Chain humanizes a portion of early spaceflight history. Throughout civilization, stories of origin were passed down orally, with some ultimately being transcribed. As a sculptor, I believe that artifacts are imbued with object memory, and are a part of our societal heritage. Having items that daily bore witness to the development of lunar technologies experience the particular gravity they originally planned for, brings their narrative full circle. Inside a lunar gravity pocket, I included two segments of delicate gold chain, one from my grandfather’s tie clip and the other from my grandmother’s watch- both part of their daily professional dress. My grandfather was an Aerospace Engineer, developing engine and chemical propulsions in support of lunar spacecraft missions. He met my grandmother at NASA, where they both worked and fell in love. During orbit, the chains "danced”- retelling the story of my grandparents’ work romance amidst the Space Race.

Sojourner 2020 (a 1.5U size unit, 100mm x 100mm x 152.4mm ) will be launched into low Earth orbit for about 30 days. It features a three-layer telescoping structure which creates three different “gravities”: zero gravity, lunar gravity, and Martian gravity. Each layer of the structure rotates independently. The top layer remains still in weightlessness, while the middle and bottom layers spin at different speeds to produce centripetal accelerations that mimic lunar gravity and Martian gravity, respectively. Each layer carries 6 pockets that can hold projects.