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30 Years of Autonomous Space Exploration – AAA Returns!
April 26 @ 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm BST
Saturday 26th April, 3 pm
at MayDay Rooms
It’s been three decades since the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) launched the first independent space exploration programme on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Between 1995 and 2000, AAA organized raves in space, played three-sided football tournaments, built spaceship launchpads in the heart of the city, took part in intergalactic conferences and experienced zero-gravity training flights—all while mounting a radical critique of government, military, and corporate control of space travel.
May Day Rooms holds a significant collection of materials related to the group’s activities, and that’s why we wanted to once again look up to the stars to celebrate the AAA’s 30th anniversary. We’ll explore how the Autonomous Astronauts’ original concerns resonate in today’s world—one shaped by billionaire space tourism, the increasing militarization of space, profit-driven interplanetary colonization, and a general sense of political imagination running on empty.
On the day, founding AAA members—alongside Autonomous Astronauts from France and Italy—will chart pathways into (and out of) the AAA, putting some of the group’s initial ideas to the test of time, while Space Watch UK will brief us on recent developments in the UK military space programme.
Expect an exhibition featuring materials from MDR’s Association of Autonomous Astronauts collection, screenings of AAA’s archival video materials alongside a rare showing of Aaron Trinder’s “Free Party: A Folk History” documentary, and, of course, a rave in space till late— with music, food and drinks! Prepare for lift-off!
14.00-15.30:
What makes it possible to attempt the impossible?
Inner City AAA
Five years that shook the universe: digging through the AAA archive
Disconauts, Raido AAA, Inner City AAA
16.00-17.30:
Forget about Musk, Bezos & Branson, this was the AAA (and it will always be)!
AAA 333 Bologna
UK’s military space programme in 2025
Space Watch UK
Autonomous Astronauts and the planetary condition
AAA Rosko
Film screenings
19.00-21.30
AAA videos
Free Party: A Folk History + Q&A with the Director Aaron Trinder