Jordan Bimm PhD

Jordan Bimm is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University
in the Department of Sociology working on a project titled Putting Mars in a
Jar: The Military Origin of Astrobiology. He received a PhD in Science &
Technology Studies (STS) from York University for his dissertation,
Anticipating the Astronaut: Subject Formation in Early American Space
Medicine 1949-1959.

Broadly defined, his research interests cover all facets of life in space in
the early Cold War, from the initial selection and training of astronauts, to
the first simulations of extraterrestrial life on other worlds. Focused
primarily on the work of pre-NASA military life scientists in the 1950s, his
work intersects with histories of space medicine, space psychology, human
factors engineering, and astrobiology.

His current project, Putting Mars in a Jar: The Military Origin of
Astrobiology, examines a forgotten 1950s research program where physiologists
and microbiologists working for the United States Air Force simulated life on
the surface of Mars. Examining the tiny models of the harsh Mars environment
they constructed (and called "Mars Jars"), and their interest in the life
sealed inside, casts our relationship to other worlds, technology, the
environment, outer space, our inner selves, and potential extraterrestrial
life in a critical new light.

He is also a Fellow of the Linda Hall Science, Engineering, and Technology
Library.