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Remembering Skylab

Posted by michael on from the don't-look-up dept.

linuxwrangler writes "It was 30 years ago today that NASA launched Skylab, the first US space station. An article at New York Times remembers Skylab. It was hardly a flawless launch with a meteroid shield getting ripped loose causing one of the solar arrays to partially deploy and then be blown into space by the exhaust from a retro-rocket but the speed and effectiveness of the astronauts' repairs showed human's ability to operate in space and helped pave the way for today's projects. Skylab reentered on July 11, 1979 leaving a debris field across parts of Western Australia and the Indian Ocean."

16 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. 30 Years. by GreenHell · · Score: 1

    The very first line in the NY Times article says 30 years.

    Either somebody can't read, or they can't do math.

    --
    "I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
    1. Re:30 Years. by GreenHell · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're absolutely right, it's the 3rd sentence.

      So it's official then. I can't read.

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      "I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
  2. remembering Skylab joke from Omni magazine... by Tumbleweed · · Score: 1

    Skylab: (n) Government dogs trained to retrieve fallen spacecraft parts. :)

  3. Time travel too!!! by karrde · · Score: 2, Funny

    So among all the other feats it managed to reenter the atmosphere 4 years before it launched.... Amazing!!

    Perhaps it should say it reentered in 1989.

    1. Re:Time travel too!!! by darksaber · · Score: 1

      funny, but it was the launch date that was wrong, not the re-entry date...

  4. Re:20 Years? by darksaber · · Score: 1

    yeah, so much for mailing daddypants (the "on-duty editor" and pointing this error out... the launch was 30 years ago today. NASA has a page about this by the way.

  5. Oops, make that 30 years. by linuxwrangler · · Score: 3, Informative

    So my fingers don't always aim right before my first cup of coffee. The "2" should have been a "3".

    Now that I've made my "off by one" error for the day I can safely proceed with real work.

    --

    ~~~~~~~
    "You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
    1. Re:Oops, make that 30 years. by darksaber · · Score: 2, Interesting

      hmmm, insert obligatory "make this guy an editor since he notices, admits mistakes, and posts corrections" comment here?

      have fun at work linuxwrangler - if only mistake quotas worked that way :)

  6. Someone needs coffee... by dasunt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How was Skylab launched 20 years ago, and reentered 25 years ago?

    Ah, I see that the magical slashdot gnomes just changed '20' to '30' on the front page.

    1. Re:Someone needs coffee... by GreenHell · · Score: 1

      How was Skylab launched 20 years ago, and reentered 25 years ago?

      Simple. They put it in an orbit that was the opposite of the Earth's rotation, so that it was going backwards in time until it finally crashed ~4 years before it launched.

      Either that or they shot it at the sun really fast and it slingshotted around back into the past. Take your pick.

      Today's post brought to you be pseudo-science, stupid theories, and the number 3

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      "I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
  7. I remember the crash. by torpor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm from Perth, and remember staying up all night to try and catch a glimpse of Skylab as it came crashing down.

    The next day there were news reports on big chunks that had landed all over the place. Nobody was hurt if I remember correctly, but it was funny to see one picture of a typical Aussie wheatbelt'er, standing next to a big ball of shredded super hight tech O2 tank in the middle of his paddock.

    That really was the beginning of my personal "Space Love Era", heh heh ... Skylab, you piece of shit you! Why didn't you stay up!!!

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    1. Re:I remember the crash. by bananahammock · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What was really cool, was this girl at my primary school in Perth who brought along a piece of insulation from Skylab to our class. It looked a little bit like straw (in colour at least), but the fact it was from a space vehicle made it seem priceless to a bunch of young whippersnappers. Also some of the farmers in the wheatbelt said the very small particles falling that night sounded, not surprisingly, like hail against their tin roofing. I also remember seeing that same farmer next to a huge chunk of Skylab, around a tonne or so, which they somehow loaded onto a trailer behind their car. I wonder where it is now.

  8. Last of an Era by sohp · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Skylab station was carried into space on the last of the Saturn V rockets to be launched. Hats off to the most powerful booster ever built. The Saturn V achieved a perfect launch record, rare in any rocket, much less a big one. Its computer was attached to the inside walls of a 1x6.7 meter ring, but your PDA is easily more powerful. Nevertheless the computer even demonstrated it could withstand a direct strike by lightning, twice, on the Apollo 12 launch and still keep going.

    1. Re:Last of an Era by torpor · · Score: 1

      Conspiracy theories aside, the F-1 production facility and engineering archives were all lost in a fire.

      To build the F-1 today, we would have to re-engineer it completely from scratch ... including all blueprints, designs, test material, etc. That this was all lost is a travesty, but hey ... we've moved on.

      --
      ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    2. Re:Last of an Era by DrEnter · · Score: 1

      I know this is a bit off-topic and may seem somewhat inflamatory, but I really feel I need to respond to this.

      Implying that the moon landings were a hoax is foolish at best, but more so very insulting to the thousands of people involved in the project and the dozens of astronauts that risked (and in some cases lost) their lives for it. I'm not going to say any more about this except to recommend that you read Philip Plait's Bad Astronomy web site, more specifically the section on Moon Landing Hoax theories.

      Regarding the use of the Saturn V booster since SkyLab... Why? Whilst these were powerful and flexible boosters and had a perfect launch record, they did not have a perfect test record and it was only a matter of time before a launch accident occured (which, I might add, could have been catostrophic at and around the launch pad). They were also pretty expensive and difficult to operate. I highly recommend you take a look at one of the Saturn Vehicle Histories you'll find on-line. If you have any lingering doubts as to the existance of the F-1 or the Saturn V, there are still some in existance you might want to have a look at for yourself.

  9. Wow. by spumoni_fettuccini · · Score: 1

    I remember when thy didn't exactly know where it was going to land and the media induced panic. I must say I was a little worried about it. Damn...'79 huh...where does the time go?

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    -- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.