The history of Skylab will be forever overshadowed by its inauspicious first days and even more infamous demise.
By PATRICK ROWAN
Upon realizing that Skylab's 40th anniversary was approaching, the first image that came to mind was that of a make-shift spaceship repair that looked more like some hastily set up tarp shelter for a night in the woods than some slick space-age fix.
The second was a futuristic video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_p7LiyOUx0) of an astronaut running around the inside circumference of this orbiting hollow cylinder 22 feet in diameter. The only thing missing was Hollywood production quality.
The setting was, in fact, reminiscent of the famous "centrifuge jogging scene" in Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking science fiction masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey" which was set aboard the huge Discovery interplanetary spaceship. (That movie had been released just five years earlier.)
But then I flashed on what is likely the most pervasive recollection of all: Skylab's premature fall from orbit. All those many "Skylab is falling!" T-shirts, "Chicken Little" references, and the international media saturation that led up to the actual event are hard to forget.
So it is against this backdrop that I remember the launch of NASA's first space station 40 years ago this month. It was seen as a bold new step in space exploration, even if Skylab's history will be forever overshadowed by its inauspicious first days and even more infamous demise.
Less known are the incredibly risky "space-cowboy" antics employed to salvage the craft, which was so severely damaged during launch that it would otherwise have been useless. Some of the stunts the astronauts pulled to patch things up pushed the limits of the day's technology — not to mention their safety — and probably would not be allowed today.
Things would at least be much more carefully choreographed. Stories of the astronauts' hands-on, outside-the-ship jury rigging reminded me of bush pilots fixing their airplanes on the fly out of necessity.
The crew of the first manned Skylab mission, from left, Joseph P. Kerwin, science pilot; Charles Conrad Jr., commander; and Paul J. Weitz, pilot. Astronaut Joe Kerwin (the science pilot for Skylab's first crew from May 25-June 22, 1973) saw the early challenges that the engineering team faced as the equivalent to the "supreme test" of near tragedy of Apollo 13 for the Mission Control team. The stakes may have been lower, but the same kind of "can do" ingenuity came into play.
On the morning of May 14, 1973, there was optimism around the Kennedy Space Center. Just half a year after the final moon mission (Apollo 17), hopes for the start of a new phase in space exploration were focused on the new Skylab space habitat riding unmanned atop the Saturn V booster. Skylab was big — a fully modified third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket itself. (Smaller Saturn 1B rockets would later transport crews to the Skylab in the familiar Apollo command modules.)
With more than10,000 cubic feet of open space inside, it was as roomy as a house, and had about a third of the interior space of the International Space Station, which is itself roughly equal to that of a Boeing 747.
But the ISS is more like a series of tunnels, so surely the occupants would be envious of the cavernous main "playroom" that Skylab featured. Horsing around inside that craft for exercise had to be more fun than running on the "Colbert" treadmill in its small module on the ISS.
During Skylab's launch, aerodynamic forces stripped the shield meant to protect most of the space station from micrometeoroids and sunlight completely free of the station. A few minutes later one of the main solar panels went, too. After reaching orbit, it was discovered that debris tangled in the second solar panel was preventing it from opening.
Without the shield, temperatures in the station rose to 126 degrees Fahrenheit. And without the solar panels, there was a shortage of electricity. These put the entire program in jeopardy. The good news was that the four solar panels on the Apollo Telescope Mount did open, providing enough power to keep the station alive until repairs could be made.
The first Skylab crew was originally supposed to lift off the next day, but that got scrubbed just hours after Skylab reached orbit and the extent of the damage became apparent.
Launch of the crew was rescheduled for the morning of May 25, giving engineers time to develop tools and techniques to repair the crippled station.
Reaching Skylab 270 miles up, Commander Charles C. Conrad Jr., pilot Paul J. Weitz and science pilot Joseph P. Kerwin came equipped with a newly designed parasol sunshade, specialized equipment and a boatload of practice.
There were doors to be opened, panels to be removed, poles and cables to be installed and solar panels to be freed — much of which had to be done manually with tools in hand. This was dicey stuff, and unanticipated events almost resulted in disaster on several occasions.
Some work had to be done from the command module. As Weitz leaned outside tugging and jimmying a stuck panel with a pole, they discovered that they were pulling the command module toward Skylab. Skylab's thrusters spit and spurted to correct its position while Conrad struggled to keep the spacecraft just two feet from the station while avoiding a collision.
In one dramatic instance, as Conrad worked his way by hand along a beam to free a stuck device, some metal sprang loose, knocking him from his perch. Only his tether prevented him from drifting off into space. Another circumstance involving a suddenly released solar array catapulted both Conrad and Kerwin outward, their tethers again averting potential disaster.
They ultimately succeeded in opening the stuck solar array, but not before peppering their discussions with colorful, construction-site language. Mission control had to remind them that everyone could hear, and asked them to cool it.
Their "tarp" repair initially looked crooked and crinkled, but the day/night cooling and heating cycle helped straighten it. In another day, they had the station’s power up to 70 percent. Having accomplished the most substantial in-space repairs ever, the crew returned after 28 days in space.
Owen K. Garriott, Skylab 3 science pilot, during an extravehicular activity. Three teams of astronauts lived on Skylab for up to 84 days, testing human endurance in weightlessness, and conducting scientific experiments including analysis of the sun's activity and its affect on Earth. (One of those effects would, years later, cause the craft's orbit to decay more quickly than expected.)
Because of safety concerns, the last two crews had an additional Apollo / Saturn IB at the ready to rescue them in orbit if needed.
In February 1974, the third crew closed the hatch on Skylab one final time. The idea was to leave it in orbit until the new space shuttles being planned could come and boost its orbit so that it could be refurbished and used again.
But budget cuts delayed the shuttle's development, and with an earlier than expected decay in Skylab's orbit (caused by a stronger than usual solar maximum that expanded Earth's atmosphere) it eventually became apparent that Skylab would fall before it could be saved.
Back in 1970, NASA had decided to not include a retrorocket system in Skylab due to the high cost and acceptable risk. Later, NASA calculated that the chances of debris hitting a human were 1 in 152, but the odds that any particular individual would be hit were 1 in 600 billion.
There would be a 1 in 7 chance of debris hitting a city of 100,000 people or
more, they said.
The race to predict exactly where and when the craft would finally come down was on. Skylab's coming demise became an international media event featuring daily updates. Scientists reoriented and rolled the craft in an attempt to steer it to entry over the ocean.
In the early morning hours of July 12, 1979 — a decade after the first moon walk — the 77.5-ton Skylab plunged to Earth, scattering debris across the southern Indian Ocean and sparsely populated Western Australia.
The Australian town of Esperance half-kiddingly fined the United States $400 for littering, a bill that went unpaid until a California radio station raised the funds in 2009.
Skylab, which spent the last five of its six years unoccupied, was not the first space station. (Richard Kruse has created a superb graphic illustrating the relative sizes of humanity's various space stations, as well as the Space Shuttle, at his wonderful website, HistoricSpacecraft.com) The Russians’ Salyut, a 43-by-13 foot craft, went up in April 1971. The first three man crew couldn't dock, and came home. A second crew did, and spent 23 days on the Salyut, but died upon return due to an oxygen leak in their Soyuz capsule. The Russian program was suspended long enough to give Skylab the chance to become the first space station manned by multiple crews.
Shortly after Skylab's reentry, two Soviet cosmonauts aboard Russia's new station, Salyut 6, set a new record in Earth orbit (175 days), breaking one that had been set the previous year by another Soviet crew. The Soviets were now planning permanent stations in Earth orbit.
The MIR space station orbited from 1986 to 1996. Construction of NASA's International Space Station started 15 years ago in 1998. That partnership with Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, and others, thrives to this day. It is the third brightest object in the sky, surpassed only by the sun and moon.
Stars Over Springfield: The Springfield Science Museum’s large rooftop telescope will be open for public sky-gazing on Friday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Stars Over Springfield observatory series. This month’s featured speaker is Tim Connolly, secretary of the Amherst Area Amateur Astronomers Association, whose talk is titled, “An Introduction to iPhone and iPad Astronomy Apps.”
Stars Over Springfield programs are held rain or shine. If it is cloudy, a planetarium show will be presented in place of telescope viewing. The programs are best suited for families with children ages 8 and older, however younger children are also welcome. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for children 17 and under.
The Springfield Science Museum is located on the Quadrangle at 21 Edwards St. in downtown Springfield. Secure free onsite parking is available. For information about astronomy programs at the museum, call (413) 263-6800, ext. 318.
Follow ever-changing celestial highlights in the Skywatch section of the Weather Almanac in the Daily Republican and Sunday Republican.
Patrick Rowan has written Skywatch for The Republican since 1987 and has been a Weather Almanac contributor since the mid 1990s. A native of Long Island, Rowan graduated from Northampton High School, studied astronomy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the '70s and was a research assistant for the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. From 1981 to 1994, Rowan worked at the Springfield Science Museum's Seymour Planetarium, most of that time as planetarium manager. Rowan lives in the Florence section of Northampton with his wife, Clara, and cat, Luna.