The Skylab Program

Podcast Transcript

In the early 1970s, after the triumph of landing on the Moon, NASA faced a question: what comes next?

The answer was Skylab, America’s first space station. Built from leftover Apollo hardware and launched on the final Saturn V rocket, Skylab became humanity’s first long-term laboratory in space.

Astronauts lived aboard for months, studying the Sun, observing Earth, and learning how the human body adapts to weightlessness.

Learn more about Skylab and its legacy on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Skylab was the United States’ first space station and one of the most ambitious human spaceflight experiments of the early 1970s.

The decision to create Skylab emerged in the mid-1960s as NASA began considering what should follow the Apollo Moon program. At the time, many engineers and planners inside NASA believed that space stations would be the logical next step in human spaceflight.

One of the earliest advocates was Wernher von Braun, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Von Braun and his team had long envisioned large orbital stations assembled in space using Saturn rockets.

However, by the mid-1960s, it was becoming clear that the political support and funding required for such large projects would likely disappear once the Moon landing goal had been achieved.

Within NASA, the idea began to shift toward using existing Apollo hardware to create something more affordable. This approach became known as the “Apollo Applications Program,” or AAP.

Instead of designing entirely new spacecraft, engineers proposed repurposing surplus Saturn rockets, Apollo command modules, and rocket stages for new missions.

The concept included many possible ideas such as extended lunar missions, space telescopes, and orbital laboratories. The most practical of these was the idea of converting the upper stage of a Saturn rocket into a space station.

By 1967 and 1968, NASA began refining these ideas into a concrete project. Several factors pushed the agency toward the space station concept.

First, the Apollo program was nearing its peak, and NASA expected that several Saturn V rockets and Apollo spacecraft would remain unused after the Moon landing goal was achieved.

Second, Congress had begun cutting NASA’s budget after 1966, making large new programs politically unrealistic. Reusing existing hardware became the only viable way to continue human spaceflight on a meaningful scale.

In 1969, shortly after the Apollo 11 Moon landing, NASA formally committed to building the space station, and the project was renamed Skylab The decision was supported by NASA leadership, including Administrator Thomas Paine, and by members of Congress willing to fund a relatively inexpensive program that used existing Apollo infrastructure.

The design was finalized so that the station would launch as a single large structure on a Saturn V rocket, with astronauts traveling to it using the Apollo command and service module.

Funding for Skylab was closely tied to the winding down of the Apollo program. Instead of developing an entirely new spacecraft system, NASA argued that converting existing rocket stages and spacecraft would provide a low-cost way to continue human spaceflight research.

Congress approved the program as part of NASA’s post-Apollo transition, seeing it as a bridge between the Moon program and the proposed Space Shuttle.

The resulting space station weighed roughly 170,000 pounds, making it the largest single object placed in orbit at the time.

Skylab was launched by NASA on May 14, 1973, aboard the final functioning Saturn V rocket leftover from the Apollo program. This mission was dubbed Skylab 1.

The launch was dramatic and nearly disastrous. Shortly after liftoff, the station’s micrometeoroid shield, which also served as a thermal blanket, tore loose due to aerodynamic forces.

The debris ripped off one solar panel and jammed another, leaving the station without adequate power and raising internal temperatures to dangerous levels.

Engineers feared the station might be lost before any crew could reach it.

Ten days later, the first manned mission, Skylab 2, was launched. The three astronauts assigned to the mission were Commander Pete Conrad, science pilot Joseph Kerwin, and pilot Paul Weitz.

When the crew arrived at Skylab, their first task was to inspect the damage. Weitz attempted to free the jammed solar panel during a spacewalk by pulling on it with a long pole from the Apollo command module, but the effort failed.

The astronauts then docked with the station and entered an interior that had been baking in the sun for days. Temperatures inside were extremely high, and many materials had degraded or begun to smell from the heat.

One of the crew’s most urgent tasks was to cool the station. To accomplish this, they deployed a makeshift sunshade that had been rapidly designed by engineers on Earth.

The device resembled a large parasol and was pushed through a small scientific airlock. Once opened, it shaded the station and allowed temperatures inside to gradually drop to livable levels.

A few days later, Conrad and Kerwin performed a second spacewalk in which they successfully freed the stuck solar panel. The panel suddenly snapped open with considerable force, restoring much of Skylab’s electrical power.

With both cooling and power largely restored, the station became fully operational. These repairs were among the earliest examples of complex in-orbit maintenance and demonstrated that astronauts could fix major spacecraft problems while in space.

After twenty-eight days in space, the crew returned to Earth on June 22, 1973, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The mission was widely considered a success, particularly given the severe problems that had threatened the station at launch.

Skylab 2 not only saved the damaged space station but also proved that astronauts could perform complex repairs and operate effectively during long-duration missions.

The Skylab 3 mission was the second mission to visit Skylab lasting from July 28 to September 25, 1973. The crew consisted of Commander Alan Bean, Science Pilot Owen Garriott, and Pilot Jack Lousma.

Their mission lasted fifty-nine days, more than doubling the duration of the first Skylab mission and further demonstrating that astronauts could live and work productively in space for extended periods.

By the time they arrived, the station had already been repaired by the previous crew, allowing Skylab 3 to focus primarily on scientific research.

During the mission, the astronauts conducted a wide range of experiments in solar astronomy, Earth observation, and biomedical science. Using the Apollo Telescope Mount, they observed solar flares and other solar phenomena, collecting valuable data about the Sun’s activity.

The crew also photographed Earth’s surface, studying geological formations, storms, and environmental changes. Medical experiments monitored how the human body adapted over nearly two months in microgravity, providing important information on muscle loss, bone density, and cardiovascular function.

One of the highlights of the mission was Owen Garriot who played a prank on mission control. He had a small tape recorder and had previously recorded messages from his wife to make it sound as if she were on the station.

Owen Garriott also secretly brought along a spider named Arabella as part of a student experiment to observe how spiders spin webs in microgravity. The spider successfully adapted to weightlessness and produced webs aboard Skylab, demonstrating that many instinctive behaviors could still function in space.

The Skylab 4 mission was the third and final crewed expedition to the Skylab space station, lasting from November 16, 1973, to February 8, 1974. The crew consisted of Commander Gerald Carr, science pilot Edward Gibson, and pilot William Pogue. Their mission lasted eighty-four days, which at the time was the longest human spaceflight ever conducted.

Over the course of their mission, they carried out hundreds of experiments and observations. One of their primary responsibilities also involved operating the Apollo Telescope Mount.

Using it, the astronauts observed solar flares, sunspots, and the complex structures of the Sun’s corona in ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. These observations provided scientists with some of the most detailed information about solar activity ever collected at the time.

Biomedical research remained an important aspect of the mission. Because Skylab 4 lasted nearly three months, it provided the first opportunity for scientists to gather data on how the human body responds to weightlessness for such an extended period.

The astronauts participated in experiments that measured changes in muscle mass, bone density, heart function, and the body’s fluid balance. They followed strict daily exercise routines using equipment aboard the station to help maintain their physical health.

The data gathered during Skylab 4 significantly advanced scientific understanding of how to keep astronauts healthy during long missions.

The mission also included several spacewalks. During these extravehicular activities, the astronauts retrieved film from external solar observatories and performed maintenance tasks outside the station.

Skylab 4 is also remembered for the widely reported story of the so-called “Skylab mutiny.” Mission Control had scheduled a very demanding workload for the crew, and the astronauts struggled to keep up with the constant stream of experiments and tasks.

The crew once paused their activities to rest and adjust their schedule, briefly decreasing contact with Mission Control. This event, although later sensationalized as a “strike in space,” demonstrated the significant psychological strain of extended space missions. Consequently, NASA was prompted to re-evaluate its approach to planning astronaut workloads.

Skylab 4 was the last crew to visit the space station, but that was not the original plan.

When Skylab was designed in the late 1960s, NASA expected that the upcoming Space Shuttle, then scheduled to begin flying in the late 1970s, would be able to reach the station.

The plan was for the Shuttle to periodically visit Skylab, deliver new crews, and use its engines to boost the station into a higher orbit to counteract atmospheric drag.

However, delays in the Shuttle program meant it would not be ready before Skylab’s orbit began decaying.

Skylab’s final chapter became one of the most widely publicized space events of the 1970s.

As its orbit deteriorated, uncertainty about where it might land captured global attention. Engineers attempted to control its descent by firing onboard thrusters to guide debris toward the ocean, but the exact path could not be predicted.

On July 11, 1979, Skylab reentered Earth’s atmosphere and broke apart, scattering debris across the southeastern Indian Ocean and sparsely populated areas of Western Australia.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported. The event became a cultural phenomenon, with worldwide news coverage of the “Skylab watch” and jokes about falling space debris.

Skylab doesn’t get much attention, but it was a brief yet extremely important milestone in the history of spaceflight.

The station’s interior volume was enormous compared with earlier spacecraft, roughly comparable to a small house, giving astronauts far more room to move than in Apollo capsules.

Because it was built from a converted rocket stage, the workshop included features such as a wardroom, sleeping quarters, exercise equipment, and even a shower, making it the most comfortable spacecraft humans had lived in up to that point.

The program demonstrated that astronauts could remain healthy and productive during long missions, an essential step toward later stations.

It pioneered techniques for repairing spacecraft in orbit, managing long-duration crews, and designing space laboratories. Many procedures used on Skylab influenced later space stations, including the Soviet Mir and the International Space Station.

Skylab also helped refine the concept of space-based solar observatories and Earth observation platforms. In a broader sense, it served as a bridge between the era of the Moon race and the space shuttle program that followed.

American manned space flight in the 1970s began on a high note with the Apollo missions, and then did nothing in the second half of the decade. Skylab was the transition between Apollo and the shuttle program that laid the foundation for the decades of space flight that followed.