Då har vi tagit oss 27 km på vår resa och vykort nr.3 kom från Space Stations.
Skylab 3 – not the 3rd space station, but the second manned mission to Skylab – launches on the 28th of July 1973, and its crew begins their first task: deploying a more permanent sunshade to protect the Orbital Workshop. They accomplish this during a 6-hour and 29-minute spacewalk (a record for an extravehicular mission in orbit at that time). Once the sunshade is in place, the temperature drops into a more comfortable range, allowing the astronauts to turn their minds to their planned experiments and observations.
Alongside Alan L. Bean, Owen K. Garriott and Jack R. Lousma, the mission involves 2 minnows, 50 minnow eggs, 6 pocket mice, 720 fruit fly pupae and 2 spiders named Arabella and Anita. The animals are used in experiments concerning their behaviour in space, such as web-spinning abilities.
Aside from the deep space, astronauts turn their eyes and minds towards Earth. The Earth Resources Experiment Package, located in the Multiple Docking Adapter, permits them to observe our planet in visible, infrared and microwave spectra. The naked eye proves to be a powerful detection tool as well, as the crew can observe the forming of Hurricane Ellen over the Atlantic. The astronauts recognise that the data only they can gather benefits meteorologists back on Earth, so they take stereo photographs of the event, which provide scientists with invaluable insight into cloud formation.
The 3 men safely get back to Earth after 59 days, 858 orbits around the Earth, and after achieving all of their mission goals. Moreover, because they are given a more intense exercise programme as well as a more calorie-dense diet than the previous missions, they return in better physical shape than previous astronauts.
On the 16th of November 1973, Gerald P. Carr, Dr. Edward G. Gibson and Lt. Col. William Pogue form the crew of Skylab 4, which is to be the last manned mission to Skylab. Keeping in tradition with the other missions, they start their space sojourn by fixing something, namely the coolant systems in the Airlock Module.
Aside from running experiments and observations, the 3 astronauts are also tasked with monitoring comet Kohoutek as their mission overlaps nicely with the period of time the comet comes closer to Earth. Kohoutek excites all space enthusiasts down on Earth as it is expected to be very bright. The nickname “Comet of the Century” quickly changes to “The Disappointment of the Century” as the space object turns out to be barely visible to the naked eye. However, armed with better tools and a great view of Kohoutek, the astronauts are able to monitor its passing very closely and gather exquisite data.
The mission is initially planned for 54 days, but it is subject to extension on a week-by-week basis up to 84 days. The longer the astronauts spend in space, the more dangerous microgravity and radiation become for their bodies, so they are instructed to exercise for even longer periods of time. Every minute in space is valuable and expensive, so the scientists back home cram as much work into the astronauts’ timetable as they possibly can. The work is exhausting, but the men are tough and know what they signed up for. There is an urban legend that, having had enough, one day, the astronauts simply shut off all communications and take an unplanned day off. The crew’s issues are real, but their demands are solved by a frank conversation, and they manage to wrangle 1 day completely off every 10 days and less work done immediately before and after sleep. But we can take a moment and imagine the astronauts floating in space, with no critical mission at hand, nothing to fix, report or observe. We can imagine them looking around the thin cylinder separating them from the void of the universe, the cylinder that keeps them alive for weeks and seeing it not just as a workplace or a lab, but as a home. We can imagine them gazing out of the windows and yearning for the verdant home, waiting for their return.
Skylab 4 marks an interesting first. Between December 18th and 26th, cosmonauts Pyotr Klimuk and Valentin Lebedev conduct some experiments as part of the Soyuz 13 mission. Although the American and Soviet astronauts never met in space, this is the first time the two nations’ crews orbit Earth at the same time. A glimpse of things to come.
All good things must come to an end.. One of the most important tasks for the ground crew is to keep the space station at the correct altitude. This becomes increasingly difficult because higher-than-expected solar activity causes the Earth’s orbit to expand, thus increasing the drag on Skylab and causing it to come to an altitude of 250 miles. Various rescue missions that involve booster rockets are discussed, but in the end, a controlled deorbiting is scheduled for the space station.
On 11th of July 1979, Skylab re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, where most of it burns up, while some parts fall over the ocean and uninhabited parts of Australia. After 171 occupied days, 3 crewed missions, almost 300 technical and scientific experiments, and countless hours of observations, Skylab’s luminous 6 years in space end in a blaze of glory.