I’ve never been a fan of the Zombie Apocalypse narrative. Who needs the fictitious afflicted undead in order to feel insecure in their relationship to resources and humanity? Not this guy. Instead, I get my social-framework-challenging kicks by thinking about real societal failings and foibles. Modern ruins, abandoned buildings and the aftermath of economic or political hubris are great stand-ins if you need your neck hairs lifted by something a little more believable than actors done up with gray facepaint and bloodshot eyes. The most recent addition to my real world ‘creep canon’: zombie satellites.
Zombie satellites are closer to what they sound like than you might think (and not too far off from the recurring theories about MH370 either, but let’s not go there). These satellites are inactive but still mobile, abandoned by their creators to wander the galaxy. Sometimes their abandonment is due to mysterious “illness"—a glitch or immobilizing malfunction. Sometimes they are simply casualties of their own technical limitations, their aging hardware no longer able to communicate with the indifferent world advancing below.
Here are a few of my favorite examples of space-bound technological zombies and our ongoing relationships with them.
Fitting that SkyCorp HQ is an abandoned Macdonald’s? I vote yes.
ISEE-3, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, has spent 36 years in space and 17 years abandoned. Originally used to view solar activity between the sun and earth, the little craft was later redirected to visit the tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner. Charted by the satellite’s flight director, the redirection enraged solar scientists who accused him of stealing their satellite, to which he responded that he was “just borrowing it" and would return it eventually. Seems legit. Since the Giacobini-Zinner visit, ISEE-3 has been looping through the solar system on a 30 year course that would bring it (yes, eventually) back in striking distance of our moon. It’s still on track and still transmitting, but, in the meantime, the old transmitters for communicating with the little guy were literally thrown out.
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