The Fifty-First Star, Part 1 (Armchair Astronaut, Aug. 2011)

Welcome to this tenth edition of Armchair Astronaut! This month I'm featuring Homesteading Space, on America's first space station--Skylab.

I must say, when I started this book, I was a bit skeptical. Why? Because I fiercely admire Project Apollo and going to to the moon. With Skylab in the picture, three moon-bound missions were canceled. I was sure that Skylab couldn't hold a candle to the moon. I mean, all Skylab did was orbit the earth, right?

Homesteading Space is 470 pages and was written by David Hitt, Owen Garriott, and Joe Kerwin. Both Garriott and Kerwin flew aboard Skylab, so I knew this book would be good. And to top that off, Homesteading Space is part of the Outward Odyssey series of space history books--I knew that any book in the Outward Odyssey series is top-notch, so I was expecting the best as I cracked page one. I was not disappointed!

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The Skylab I "Fix-It" crew, L-R:
Kerwin, Conrad, and Weitz

As Project Apollo neared its' end in the early 1970s, NASA needed another space program to execute. Many people, including Saturn V designer/builder Wernher von Braun thought that America should have a space station. Sure; we had been to the moon, America had established a presence in space. But could we stay there, for long periods of time? Could we really "homestead space"? On the moon flights there had not been room for much science, other than lunar prospecting. How much science could we do in space? What information could we gain from telescopes and other equipment in space, information that we couldn't gather from earth? These were the questions that Skylab was hoped to answer in 1973 and 1974.

The Skylab II "Super crew" crew, L-R:
Garriott, Lousma, and Bean

Other NASA admistrators and managers agreed with von Braun. America did need long-duration spaceflight experience, in fact, if we were going to fly to Mars, that would certainly take a long time! And might's well just practice near our home planet.

Two years and much hard work later, the details were all ironed out. After an unmanned Saturn V boosted Skylab to orbit, three manned crews would inhabit the station for one, two, and three months at a time.

Since there would be no lunar module, naturally there would be no lunar module pilot. Instead, each manned Skylab crew would consist of a commander, pilot, and science pilot. The scientist-astronauts, most of whom were chosen too late to fly on Apollo, were thrilled to fly on Skylab. Now they would finally get to fly in space--and focus on science. The rookie pilot-astronauts were more than happy as well.

The Skylab III "all-rookie" crew, L-R:
Carr, Gibson, and Pogue

Out of the nine lucky astronauts chosen, only two had flown in space before. They were Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, who had walked on the moon together during the Apollo 12 mission. These men would command the first and second Skylab crews, respectively. Flying with Conrad on Skylab I would be Paul Weitz (pilot) and Joe Kerwin (science pilot). Several weeks after Conrad, Weitz, and Kerwin left Skylab, the Skylab II crew of Alan Bean, Owen Garriott (science pilot), and Jack Lousma (pilot) would inhabit the station for up to two months. After Skylab II returned to Earth's green hills and blue waters, rookie commander Jerry Carr and his Skylab III team of Ed Gibson (science pilot) and Bill Pogue (pilot) would stay on America's first orbiting outpost for up to three months.

Launch of the unmanned Skylab space station

But even before Skylab's spaceflights started to occur, the Skylab program "flew" one (56 days) mission down here on Earth. Yes, you read that correctly! To avoid making too many mistakes up in space, Skylab program planners decided to conduct a two-month long "spaceflight" on Earth and see what lessons they could learn. The advantage of doing this on Earth first was that they could learn lessons more safely and cheaper. Newbie astronauts Bob Crippen, Bo Bobko, and Bill Thornton were chosen for this plum assignment, referred to as "SMEAT", which stands for Skylab Medical Experiment and Altitude Test. Just like "real" crews, the SMEAT crew designed a crew patch, showing a sad-looking Snoopy character, representing their feelings about their plum assignment! While it may have not been the crew's first choice for a "flight", SMEAT did provide Skylab program planners with much useful information and "real" crews benefited much from SMEAT's results.

Even with the much-needed results from SMEAT, Skylab almost didn't fly. On May 14, 1973, a modified Saturn V  launched the unmanned Skylab space station, all complete with food and other essentials that the manned crews would need to survive. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. As the launch and deployment of Skylab proceeded, mission controllers found to their horror that a solar panel had failed to deploy, and the micrometeroid shield--designed to protect the astronauts--was gone. If NASA couldn't fix these problems (and more!), the entire Skylab program would be going down the drain. NASA was in deep, deep water. It was another Apollo 13.

To be continued...