Skylab's 40th anniversary

The notion of an orbiting space base -- the idea that ultimately became Skylab -- first surfaced in 1962 as a proposal to convert a spent Saturn V S-II rocket stage into an orbital workshop

 

The notion of an orbiting space base -- the idea that ultimately became Skylab -- first surfaced in 1962 as a proposal to convert a spent Saturn V S-II rocket stage into an orbital workshop.

In 1968, the Marshall Space Flight Center proposed an alternative to the concept of refurbishing a space station in orbit. Instead, a fully equipped workshop, it was decided, could be launched as a complete unit ready for research visits from astronauts.

Launched 40 years ago, in May 1973, Skylab became America's first space station. The goals for the space lab were primarily to enrich our scientific knowledge of the Earth, the sun, and the stars. Experiments tackled the basic notion of how space affects living beings. Skylab looked at the effects of weightlessness on man and other living organisms, the effects of the processing and manufacturing of materials utilizing the absence of gravity, and made Earth resource observations, as well as UV astronomy experiments and detailed X-ray studies of the sun.

Occupied in succession by three teams of three crew members, these crews spent 28, 59, and 84 days orbiting the Earth and performing nearly 300 experiments.

Skylab astronauts took this photograph as they approached the orbiting laboratory on the third and final mission in November 1973.

May 12, 2013 4:00 AM PDT

Photo by: NASA

| Caption by: James Martin 

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