Skylab, America's first space station

When the first crew reached Skylab on May 25, 1973, the inside of the station was about 125 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The astronauts slept in their spacecraft at first. The next day they pushed a folded sunshade shaped like a parasol out through a small airlock, and the heat began to fall.

Skylab grew out of 1960s plans to reuse rocket parts from the Apollo Moon program. Its main room, the orbital workshop, was built inside the upper stage of a Saturn rocket. NASA first meant to fly the stage full of fuel and fit it out in orbit, but in July 1969 chose to equip it on the ground. The station went up on the last Saturn V to fly, on May 14, 1973. About a minute after launch, its shield against small meteoroids tore loose. One solar panel was ripped away and the other was jammed. The first crew was Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz. On June 7, Conrad and Kerwin went outside and freed the jammed panel.

Designers from the industrial design firm of Raymond Loewy urged a wardroom for meals and a large window. The NASA official George Mueller settled the dispute over the window with "Put in the window." Crews had a freezer and an oven for their food, a shower, and a sleep compartment. For the medical studies, what each astronaut ate was carefully controlled. Feces were weighed and dried, and urine was measured and samples frozen, for return to earth.

Three crews of three lived aboard. The second (Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma) stayed 59 days, from July 28 to September 25, 1973. The third (Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue) stayed 84 days, from November 16, 1973, to February 8, 1974. Late in December, Carr asked Mission Control for "straight words" about whether his crew was falling behind. On December 30 the crew and the flight planners talked it through, including how to fit in daily exercise. In all, crews carried out about 270 experiments in medicine, solar astronomy, earth observation, and materials.

NASA hoped an early Space Shuttle flight could later boost the empty station higher, but the Shuttle was not ready in time. Skylab fell back through the atmosphere on July 11, 1979. Some pieces landed in Western Australia. Its medical studies gave early knowledge of how long spaceflight affects the human body.