11 July: Skylab

On this date in 1979 the abandoned US space station Skylab, which had been orbiting the Earth since 1973, fell to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia. 10 things you might not know about Skylab:

1. Skylab was the first United States space station, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. Three crews of three men spent time on the station, each one breaking the endurance record for time spent in space. The record set by the final crew was not broken by an American astronaut for over 20 years.
2. The first crew was Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin, who spent 28 days in space. The second was Alan Bean, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott. They spent 59 days in space. The final crew was Jerry Carr, Bill Pogue and Edward Gibson, and they set the record at 84 days in space. There was a fourth mission planned, but it was cancelled.
3. Aside from damage to a solar panel (fixing it was the first job for the first crew to restore full power) everything went pretty smoothly, but NASA did have plans in place for a rescue mission if necessary. Had they needed to, they could have sent two more astronauts up to bring the crew back.
4. Skylab weighed in at 199,750 pounds (90,610 kg) and also had a 31,000 pound (14,000 kg) Apollo command and service module attached. It included a workshop, a solar observatory, and hundreds of life science and physical science experiments.
5. Just as important, it was home for three guys during the time they were up there and included private bedrooms for each, although they were pretty small – the size of a small walk-in wardrobe. There was a shower, but taking a shower in space turned out to be a mission in itself because it had to be set up each time anyone wanted to use it and they'd have to prevent droplets of water from floating about and damaging electrical equipment. It would take about two and a half hours to take a shower. Meals were taken standing up, because sitting to eat in weightless conditions would strain the astronauts' stomach muscles.
6. The scientific observations the teams were asked to do included observing the Sun, and the Earth and the many experiments the crews had brought with them, such as watching Spiders spin webs in low gravity. Also, the astronauts were observing themselves and performing medical evaluations of each other was an important part of the mission. Observing the effects of time in space on the human body was deemed so important that the toilet was designed to collect all the urine and poo for analysis back on Earth – and had a rescue mission had to be deployed, rescuing the waste samples would have been one of their priorities.
7. The astronauts had some free time as well. When the station was being equipped, they were offered an entertainment system so they could watch films and play games, but they opted for books and individual music players, darts and Playing cards. However, they would often carry on experimenting in their free time, doing experiments they had designed for themselves. Watching the Earth out of the window was a popular way to relax.
8. The original plan was that there would be another mission, a shorter one, using a space shuttle, with the purpose of moving Skylab to a higher, more stable orbit so it could be used again later. There were delays with the production of the Space Shuttle, however, and it didn't come into service in time to prevent Skylab's orbit from decaying and for the station to come crashing down to Earth. Which it did on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
9. NASA couldn't predict exactly where Skylab would fall. They calculated the odds were 1 in 152 of debris hitting a person and 1 in 7 of it hitting a city. While ground crews did all the could to re-orient the space station to prevent it from coming down in an inhabited area, they couldn't be certain it would work and so they had teams on standby to deploy to any inhabited area it might hit. Meanwhile the general population either panicked (there was so much panic in the Philippines that President Ferdinand Marcos had to appear on national television to reassure the public) or had fun with it. Hats with targets on were popular, and one neighbourhood in Nebraska painted a big target on the ground for Skylab to aim for. People were organising sweepstakes as to where the station would land and The San Francisco Examiner offered a US$10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab delivered to its offices. While no-one was actually hit, a county in Western Australia did issue a fine to NASA for littering. The fine was written off, but did get paid in the end when a radio station got its listeners to contribute. A piece of debris was on display on stage at the 1979 Miss Universe contest in Perth. Analysis of the debris showed that the station had disintegrated 10 miles (16 km) above the Earth, much lower than expected.
10. During the time it was occupied, Skylab orbited Earth 2,476 times. Astronauts performed ten spacewalks, totalling 42 hours and 16 minutes and spent around 2,000 hours on experiments. They photographed 8 solar flares. Data from Skylab helped Riccardo Giacconi to win a Nobel Physics Prize in 2002 for his study of X-ray astronomy.

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