1 00:00:00,460 --> 00:00:04,880 \h NARRATOR:Almost 10 years before the space shuttle first launched 2 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:10,480 \h And 25 years before the first pieces of the International Space Station were connected 3 00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:13,700 \h NASA launched Skylab 4 00:00:13,700 --> 00:00:21,110 \h a home above our home planet 5 00:00:21,110 --> 00:00:26,350 \h JON COWART: Hello and welcome. I'm Jon Cowart. NASA has long focused on finding 6 00:00:26,350 --> 00:00:29,280 \h out how astronauts can live and work in space. 7 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,750 \h Finding the answer to that was one of the many reasons behind building 8 00:00:32,750 --> 00:00:34,730 \h the International Space Station. 9 00:00:34,730 --> 00:00:38,910 \h But it was also the driving question meant to be solved by America's first space station, 10 00:00:38,910 --> 00:00:42,000 \h an orbital workshop called Skylab. 11 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:47,700 \h By the time the last crew left in February 1974, astronauts spent more time in space than 12 00:00:47,700 --> 00:00:50,720 \h all of NASA's previous missions combined. 13 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:54,020 \h Their research would set the stage for today's successes onboard 14 00:00:54,020 --> 00:00:55,990 \h the International Space Station. 15 00:00:55,990 --> 00:01:01,020 \h NASA and the United States had not yet landed on the moon when the idea of a 16 00:01:01,020 --> 00:01:03,500 \h space station started taking shape. 17 00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:06,370 \h BILL SCHNEIDER, SKYLAB PROGRAM MANAGER: "Our objective was in the first 18 00:01:06,370 --> 00:01:13,550 \h place to get a lot of medical information so that we could have enough data to allow the 19 00:01:13,550 --> 00:01:18,730 \h space station to have crews that could stay up there for six months." 20 00:01:18,730 --> 00:01:24,440 \h JON COWART: The result was Skylab, a workplace in space designed to host scientific 21 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:27,310 \h discovery without forgetting the comforts of life on Earth. 22 00:01:27,310 --> 00:01:31,870 \h The workshop was built into an empty third stage from a Saturn V moon rocket. 23 00:01:31,870 --> 00:01:36,000 \h A pair of solar wings would fold out to provide electricity for the life support 24 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,320 \h and research equipment inside. 25 00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:42,810 \h The three-man crew would arrive in an Apollo capsule launched aboard another rocket. 26 00:01:42,810 --> 00:01:47,900 \h A telescope to study the sun and other instruments were mounted atop the workshop, 27 00:01:47,900 --> 00:01:51,600 \h and they were powered by four separate solar arrays that gave the Skylab 28 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:54,240 \h a windmill appearance. 29 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:59,220 \h The finished complex was folded up, fit into a nosecone on top of a Saturn V rocket 30 00:01:59,220 --> 00:02:05,660 \h and launched into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 14, 1973. 31 00:02:05,660 --> 00:02:11,250 \h But the ascent soon grew too rough for the space station, and the air rushing over the 32 00:02:11,250 --> 00:02:16,680 \h outside of the Saturn V tore off one of the large solar panels and a crucial heat shield 33 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:18,580 \h meant to protect the workshop. 34 00:02:18,580 --> 00:02:22,960 \h JON COWART: The second large solar panel was stuck in place, and Skylab reached 35 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:25,700 \h orbit critically low on electricity. 36 00:02:25,700 --> 00:02:30,150 \h Engineers struggled to find a fix for the outpost, and it fell to the first Skylab 37 00:02:30,150 --> 00:02:32,280 \h crew to make it work. 38 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:36,160 \h JOE KERWIN: The situation that faced our crew as we launched, of course, 39 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:42,180 \h was the broke Skylab. It was hot, it lacked electrical power. 40 00:02:42,180 --> 00:02:47,240 \h The whole program might be lost and we launched with a command module full of 41 00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:49,650 \h instruments many of which we had never seen before. 42 00:02:49,650 --> 00:02:53,030 \h They handed us the checklist kind of on the way in and said, "Good luck, guys." 43 00:02:53,030 --> 00:02:57,630 \h JON COWART: Moonwalker Pete Conrad and astronauts Joe Kerwin and Paul Weitz 44 00:02:57,630 --> 00:03:01,160 \h lifted off May 25 with a kit to save the mission. 45 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:07,950 \h LAUNCH COMMENTATOR: The clock is running and Skylab has cleared the tower. 46 00:03:07,950 --> 00:03:12,370 \h JON COWART: The astronauts found the crippled Skylab as they expected and quickly 47 00:03:12,370 --> 00:03:16,170 \h deployed a sunshield over the exposed section of the laboratory. 48 00:03:16,170 --> 00:03:21,840 \h BILL SCHNEIDER: When we lost that heat shield, we proved that man was a very, very 49 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:29,440 \h vital part of space exploration and that he could do a lot of repairs and fixes. 50 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,600 \h NARRATOR: Repairs and improvements would follow throughout the Skylab program, 51 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:37,740 \h including spacewalks that ultimately freed that stuck solar panel. 52 00:03:37,740 --> 00:03:43,020 \h With Skylab back in shape, three crews of astronauts would go on to prove they could 53 00:03:43,020 --> 00:03:47,220 \h handle weeks at a time in microgravity with few ill effects. 54 00:03:47,220 --> 00:03:53,190 \h They recorded brilliant images of the sun and took the first pictures of solar flares. 55 00:03:53,190 --> 00:03:57,920 \h And they turned sensitive instruments toward Earth, offering the first comprehensive 56 00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,840 \h studies of our home planet. 57 00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:04,550 \h Skylab was a pioneering home for astronauts in several ways. 58 00:04:04,550 --> 00:04:09,130 \h Astronauts set a record for spacewalks as they repaired the space station on the first 59 00:04:09,130 --> 00:04:12,480 \h flight, and then serviced Skylab's instruments throughout the missions. 60 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:16,580 \h They also spent many hours simply learning how to live comfortably in space. 61 00:04:16,580 --> 00:04:21,420 \h So, NASA designed Skylab to include many of the features of home. Take a look . . . 62 00:04:21,420 --> 00:04:25,920 \h For the first time, astronauts were in orbit long enough to see their hair grow appreciably 63 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:29,750 \h during a mission. So they learned barber skills that worked in space, 64 00:04:29,750 --> 00:04:32,950 \h notably using a vacuum to get the loose hairs. 65 00:04:32,950 --> 00:04:38,600 \h A vacuum came in handy again as the crews used one to pull water away in the shower 66 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:40,840 \h designed to work in weightlessness. 67 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:45,840 \h They adjusted to sleeping in an open space while floating. And they learned the value of exercise, 68 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:50,790 \h an important lesson that is applied vigorously to the International Space Station crews. 69 00:04:50,790 --> 00:04:54,630 \h Of course, there were plenty of experiments, too. 70 00:04:54,630 --> 00:04:58,690 \h The Skylab medical experiments were perhaps one of the most important things nasa 71 00:04:58,690 --> 00:05:03,340 \h accomplished during Skylab missions. One of Kerwin's jobs was drawing blood from his 72 00:05:03,340 --> 00:05:06,270 \h Skylab 2 commander Pete Conrad and crewmate Paul Weitz . . . 73 00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:10,900 \h JOE KERWIN: His area of weakness that I already detected on the ground was that he 74 00:05:10,900 --> 00:05:13,370 \h does not like needles and he has a tendency to pass out 75 00:05:13,370 --> 00:05:15,450 \h when you stick him with a needle. 76 00:05:15,450 --> 00:05:20,370 \h You can't pass out in zero-g, you just can't, the blood doesn't rush to the feet, you know. 77 00:05:20,370 --> 00:05:24,230 \h JON COWART: The crews learned it took the body about 16 days to completely 78 00:05:24,230 --> 00:05:26,210 \h adapt to weightlessness. 79 00:05:26,210 --> 00:05:30,840 \h JOE KERWIN: It was a beautiful machine. It was clean, it was quiet, we had plenty of 80 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:33,090 \h volume to do our thing. 81 00:05:33,090 --> 00:05:36,480 \h We'd go off after breakfast in the morning, somebody would go to do Earth resources, 82 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:40,070 \h somebody would go do solar physics, somebody would be downstairs doing 83 00:05:40,070 --> 00:05:42,770 \h housekeeping and you couldn't even hear or see each other, 84 00:05:42,770 --> 00:05:44,830 \h you'd have to talk on the intercom. 85 00:05:44,830 --> 00:05:49,930 \h AL BEAN: Skylab, later on in the mission, although I loved the mission, a lot of the days 86 00:05:49,930 --> 00:05:58,300 \h were repetitive and you had to have good self-discipline to really do well. I felt it took a 87 00:05:58,300 --> 00:06:05,250 \h lot more self-discipline to fly a good Skylab mission than it did to fly a good lunar 88 00:06:05,250 --> 00:06:09,200 \h mission because of this one psychological thing. 89 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:13,490 \h JON COWART: The work on Skylab gave NASA fundamental information that would 90 00:06:13,490 --> 00:06:16,950 \h later be used to design and build the International Space Station. 91 00:06:16,950 --> 00:06:20,380 \h Living and working in space brought about completely unexpected 92 00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:22,320 \h challenges and solutions. 93 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:26,820 \h Even something as simple as moving around inside the large orbiting workshop 94 00:06:26,820 --> 00:06:29,990 \h was not done the way astronauts expected. 95 00:06:29,990 --> 00:06:33,250 \h PETE CONRAD: Tell you one thing, the four Conrad boys would sure have a blast up 96 00:06:33,250 --> 00:06:36,260 \h here, along with every other kid in the United States if they could ever get inside. 97 00:06:36,260 --> 00:06:38,760 \h It'd be Disneyland and everything else. 98 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:44,540 \h AL BEAN: But mostly we said you'd just crawl along or move along and after the very first 99 00:06:44,540 --> 00:06:49,650 \h day of watching you, nobody crawled anywhere, everybody flew everywhere. 100 00:06:49,650 --> 00:06:53,770 \h JON COWART: There were other, more complex problems to solve, too, and the 101 00:06:53,770 --> 00:06:57,990 \h solutions would become an encyclopedia for the International Space Station. 102 00:06:57,990 --> 00:07:02,690 \h AL BEAN: So many things were learned on Skylab are going to be needed in space 103 00:07:02,690 --> 00:07:05,570 \h station and there's no way to figure them out on the ground. 104 00:07:05,570 --> 00:07:09,230 \h JON COWART: Before astronauts learned how to live and work inside the 105 00:07:09,230 --> 00:07:12,390 \h International Space Station, designers pored over the lessons of Skylab. 106 00:07:12,390 --> 00:07:16,730 \h They considered the kind of accommodations astronauts would want, judging them 107 00:07:16,730 --> 00:07:19,510 \h against what worked 35 years earlier. 108 00:07:19,510 --> 00:07:25,260 \h Skylab also contributed to parts of the space shuttle program, notably the jetpack called 109 00:07:25,260 --> 00:07:29,180 \h the Manned Maneuvering Unit used by spacewalkers to float free of the shuttle 110 00:07:29,180 --> 00:07:31,070 \h to retrieve satellites. 111 00:07:31,070 --> 00:07:36,120 \h Skylab astronauts flew the prototype jet pack in the expansive workshop area. 112 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:40,620 \h They proved they could keep control in weightlessness and refined what kind of control 113 00:07:40,620 --> 00:07:42,800 \h system would be used. 114 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:47,670 \h About 10 years after the last Skylab crew left space, Bruce McCandless used the Manned 115 00:07:47,670 --> 00:07:52,090 \h Maneuvering Unit to fly far from the space shuttle Challenger and back safely. 116 00:07:52,090 --> 00:07:56,280 \h The jet packs would be used again on later flights to catch satellites and bring them back 117 00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,230 \h to the shuttle so they could be repaired and returned to service. 118 00:07:59,230 --> 00:08:02,230 \h JON COWART: From what it set out to do to what it ultimately accomplished, 119 00:08:02,230 --> 00:08:06,880 \h Skylab has remained a fascinating element of NASA's history, and an important map 120 00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:08,330 \h for its future. 121 00:08:08,330 --> 00:08:13,580 \h One day astronauts may fly inside vehicles inspired by Skylab and its crews for months 122 00:08:13,580 --> 00:08:17,460 \h on end as they traverse the millions of miles on the way to Mars. 123 00:08:17,460 --> 00:08:22,260 \h On future missions, astronauts will likely be called on to improvise repairs and make 124 00:08:22,260 --> 00:08:25,630 \h other changes to their spacecraft by conducting unplanned spacewalks.