Saving Skylab: America's First Space Station - Full Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Saving Skylab: America's First Space Station is a documentary telling the story of how an electric lineman's tool manufacturer in Centralia, Missouri helped save the first American space station from catastrophe.
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My only A grade I ever got was a report on Skylab I did in 9th grade in 1974. I visited a replica of Skylab at the Smithsonian space museum in 1979. I couldn’t get over how small it was inside.
My name in my country translates to “Felix Skylab”.
and they even had a running shower
Ironic that the current ISS has same overall volume as Skylab.
One Saturn V launch placed that Skylab volume into space -
ISS required multiple launches and EVAs for assembly.
@@w9gbSkylab's total volume is not larger than the ISS. It does have a larger room than any other space station before or after it. It was easy to put into space because it was made from a modified Saturn V rocket stage whereas the ISS is modular and built by multiple space programs. Still, fascinating they got such a big station up there in one go.
at Sway junior school in England aged 10 in 1974 we were encouraged to cover or report on a topic of choice so myself & 2 other nippers created “ space report “ which allowed my collection of photos & articles re Skylab to become a scrapbook magazine. this gained us top marks & was a first & only 1st for me at all of infants & primary education ! come to think of it this record is still an educational pinnacle….😁👍
Great story and documentary! My grandfather, Raymond H. Stella, was a quality inspector for IBM at the Cape on Apollo and Skylab. He received an award for finding an issue that would have been detrimental to the success of Skylab. He inspired my love of space and aviation. It is because of him that I now get to work for Space X.
I just found this gem. What a story! I loved hearing them narrate those times. Shed a tear for sure. What times! Amazing work.
There's a great book about the three missions to Skylab called 'A House in Space' by Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. I read it back in the early 80s. Extremely interesting and well worth a read.
Absolutely great story. 👏👏 You shed a tear tho?
Excellent documentary. "Houston, Skylab 2 'we fix anything' we got a pitch and roll program." Only from the lips of Pete Conrad...
There's a great book about the three missions to Skylab called 'A House in Space' by Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. I read it back in the early 80s. Extremely interesting and well worth a read.
@@bipolarbear9917 Thank you. I'll track that book down. I love Skylab. It literally crashed in our backyard when I was 11...
@@gecko-sb1kp You're welcome. I was living in Sydney at the time and I remember seeing Skylab fly over like a fast moving satellite about one day before it came down in W.A. I was born in 1957, lived through Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and of course was 12 years old when Apollo 11 made the first of six Moon landings. Like the rest of us space nerds, we've been waiting for Mars ever since. I'm 65 years old now and time is running out for me. Elon Musk's Spacex is my best chance of seeing a human Mars landing in my lifetime. Fingers crossed. 👨🚀🚀
@@bipolarbear9917 All I really care about is getting someone back on the moon before our last moon walker from Apollo dies. One of my earliest recollections of life was my folks pointing out 'Sputniks' to me in the evening skies. I vaguely remember astronauts on the TV news when I was about 5 or 6 but that was probably the last Skylab crews or Apollo-Soyuz. In 1981 I stayed up to watch the first shuttle launch live but it got scrubbed. It launched 2 days later of course but by then I was on my year-8 school camp in the middle of nowhere. I hope you get to see a manned Mars landing. I seen Halley's comet when I was 18 but I wouldn't want to see it again. I'll be ancient...
I'm a space nut and can't believe I haven't seen this before now. So a very belated Great Job to everyone involved!!
I remember seeing Skylab as a bright star in the evening sky and marveling at such a huge thing with humans aboard could actually fly.
The ISS is even brighter!
I was working at the Bermuda tracking station when this was launched. We picked it about 5 minutes after liftoff. I was working at the Ascension Island station when it re-entered and we were the last station to track it about 15 minutes before re-entry.
I became very interested in science after living through Skylab days 13-14 years old in ‘73-‘74. I wouldn’t have been an Engineer for 40 years now with my interest in the Apollo program.
So much I didn't know about Skylab thanks
To this day I think the amount of work needed by so many different types of people to get us to the moon is little understood.
It truly was a national effort the likes of which we will never see again in our lifetimes.
The final Launch of the Saturn 5
In my view it is particularly neat that both Al Bean and Pete Conrad were part of this important achievement. Apollo 12 men were fortunate to live through those exciting days.
If it wasn't for 'SCE to Aux..."
That is awesome mate.. thanks from NZ 👍🇳🇿
Great story. Thanks!
Skylab is under appreciated. It's hard to find videos with different perspectives on the subject. "Chance Tools, serving your community and OUTER SPAAAAAAAACE!".
Game changer 😘
As a 12 y/o boy when Skylab was launched, already impressed by the Lunar landings and salvation of Apollo 13, I was amazed again as Nasa used their ingenuity to save Skylab given all the challenges during the launch. That the three crewed missions that followed exceeded the original number of days planned, Skylab was able to be saved.
Pete Conrad, 1969: As a kid, I never imagined I'd be walking on the Moon!
Pete Conrad, 1973: As a lunar veteran, I never imagined I'd be fixing a broken space station!
23:40 There was a lot that was very Hollywoodish, and downright wrong, about "Apollo 13" and this scene typifies that, with everyone in Mission Control on their feet, cheering and applauding while the mission is still happening.
In his book, "Failure Is Not An Option" Gene Kranz commented on this scene and said that if any controller ever stood up to cheer and applaud before the mission was concluded that would be the last time he sat in that chair.
Ron Howard got in hot water for showing Haise and Swigert shouting at each other. Never happened.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Ron Howard did a lot of things with his version of that mission that should have earned him a hot bath.
@@MarsFKA The lead actors say they told Howard they did NOT approve his creative license with the real astronauts' personalities and behaviour on the mission. In reply, Howard smirked and said he had "good reasons" for demanding such phony and overblown portrayals.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Yes. He wanted to make a film that audiences would actually want to watch. Reality had no place in it.
Standard Hollywood.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver You and Howard are both right, seen the mission transcripts? From the internal recorders too. Everyone would walk out and people simply would not believe the Astronauts could remain so calm in such a desperate situation.
Another was the line 'Al Shepard's ear infection has cropped up again', surgery had cleared his problems that kept him grounded, he had pulled rank with an all rookie (save his 15 min suborbit) crew and put himself on the next mission, 13.
NASA HQ pushed back said he and crew needed more training, so it was Apollo 14. Shepard was still alive when the film was made so maybe a concession to him.
For all that, it is still way more accurate than most.
Skylab interior was 6.7m wide (circular) by 14.7 long. In comparison, the largest actual Space Station module is only 4.4m wide (square section). So the Skylab was FAR larger inside than the ISS. Reason for this is the Skylab has been launched with the mighty Saturn 5 rocket. When the Apollo 18,19 and 20 have been canceled, one of the Saturn 5 rockets was made available to lift the Skylab. Unfortunately, the Skylab have been designed for a fairly short lifespan of about only 10 years, due to degrading components and lack of fuel to keep it in orbit. Truly sad as the interior space was behemoth compared to the ISS.
Skylab was cool, and was incredible for all that was done with early 70's technology, relatively inexpensive, and only about a decade from when we were only blasting one person up for a brief period in Project Mercury. What was really cool is the whole space station was launched all at once, and ready to go. The damage on lift off was mostly repaired by the crew. I look at that as on-site warranty repair service (damaged on delivery), like getting your new refrigerator fixed. Very successful. NASA did get very lucky. The other solar array could have also been easily torn off from Skylab. If that happened, the whole station would most likely ended up being unusable. Not enough electricity.
Two Skylabs were made. The other is in the National Air and Space Museum. It is most interesting being able to go inside it.
It was never intended to last. It would've taken a Saturn V, third stage to dock with it, then push it into an elliptical orbit. No f-n way were they gonna attempt that.
6:56 "104 W SNEED"
formerly chuck's
So true
great video
Skylab launched 50 years ago today...
My friends and I always make a joke when people over react about shit…. We say “oh no Skylab is falling”. Lol
if they can retro title it Apollo 18 Skylab , with the planned moon missions it might enhance the labs’ reputation & stake in the whole story ?
What's the song at the end? 27:10
I don't know but that is nice music!
By then, all NASA's $ was going into the reusable shuttle. Nobody foresaw the problems with it yet, but the technology was constantly changing. That's just the way it works.
Wow. What a lovely documentary. But the end was slightly tinged with the issue of NASA’s greatest achievement
If Skylab had failed? Money would’ve been wasted. The shuttle program would’ve been further delayed- but USA would have got something up there as the Soviets were spending in excess of 84 days on Salyut
Apollo 13’s complete failure might have crashed NASA too, with Apollo 14 only going up as a post script after losing three astronauts
And that’s the key- MOCR brought three men home. Personally I’d value the saving of the lives of those men over saving Skylab
Still- wonderful documentary
Can you imagine how Werner von brown felt when the Saturn. Five was flying up to the sky with the mamut force of the rocket living the earth behind
Exactly.. He visited NZ once... cheers from NZ 👍🇳🇿
Von Braun
@@gailraby2423 Gail, we appreciate your correction of Cesar’s spelling. So much.
I teach science, and one of the young men in my class was writing a paper about spaceflight, and was using his comment as a basis for a paper.
Except he couldn’t get the gist of it down! He was so confused. I was as well because “Brown?” Nobody understood at all. We basically gave up and I was about ready to assign him a new comment yesterday.
But low and behold when I woke up this morning……. You clarified it.
Thank you so much. If there’s anything you need or whatever you just let us know.
@@deoglemnaco7025
I'm glad to have been some help it's not easy when dealing with foreign names but important to at least try to get them right.
I don't know why people make that mistake haha you're not the first and I'm sure you'll not be the last.
If you think getting Von Braun's name correct was difficult wait till you get on with orbits and earth's sphere of influence it goes out twice the distance to the moon, it will blow your mind, thanks for your offer of help, but.. I think it'll be me helping you. Good luck.
@@gailraby2423 it’s all good, you are a gem. But I do believe it is you as well who needs some reading comprehension.
Read what I wrote again.
It wasn’t me or my student that needed correction, it was the first comment in the thread who made the mistake of “Brown”….
Perhaps you’d know that if you had better comprehension.
cracks me up that the A.B. Chance guy kinda just "invites" himself to Huntsville with his box of toys...
It seemed pretty cool at the time, too! It was typical of the responses we were getting from everywhere. Everyone wanted to help; and this guy and his company, with no ties to NASA, offered not only his hardware, but himself...for as long as we needed him. That's why this story is so great. It's not about NASA; it's about someone jumping onboard when his country needed him.
no more than 30 seconds. just as much as you need when simulating weightlessness in a cargo plane
Permision UpLoad.
20:00 - Git `er done!
The third crew's record didn't last decades....
Now let’s get together and fix this corona-crisis!
2
I think of weird ways to fix things in my garage all the time :) It's funny that it takes 900 people on the ground and 14 days to tell an astronaut how to use a rope for leverage. I'm sure if you left those guys alone, they could figure it out themselves. They're pretty smart too.
Hahahahaha for real
Able to load & operate IMAX Cameras in Zero Gravity.
rustusandroid: Your comment shows you know nothing about working in space circa 1973. This was not the classic "too many bosses" scenario. When improvising a whole new mission, using unfamiliar equipment in Zero-G, and without the maneuvering backpacks of years later, the astronauts had to learn a whole new and hazardous concept in 12 days. It's been my pleasure to educate you and the other cynics on this comment thread.
@@arricammarques1955 With Astronaut Maneuvering Units that did not exist in 1973. And they spent years learning how to use the IMAX and other Shuttle equipment. They had 12 days to learn to use this Skylab repair equipment, which had not heard of before. The attitudes of you and Shayne and Rustusandroid show entitled smugness.
@@brianarbenz7206 Settle down there, KEVIN...
There is a lot of Truth and a lot of things that were left out all three astronauts on the rescue missions where all involved and followed the game of baseball if NASA was to go back in their history logs and review every communication during the Rescue Mission but NASA was not prepared they did not have the tools aboard to actually cutaway the improperly installed clamp on that mission was the first time an outside source telephone and modem were used to override the Central Computer the astronauts were advised to place a piece of carbon paper for blueprint instructions on what had to be manufactured in space that was equivalent to a pair of pruning shears while they spend the time listening to 15 innings of a baseball game being played the rulebook in their pocket had been changed at the bookbinders while they kept busy fabricating they pruning shears using a spring from the middle seat and to drill the hole their fingers were Raw as they took turns using in the Air Force tie clasp from one of the astronauts personal effects because they did not have a drill on board then they fastened it to a pole that ran the length of the internal tank out through the window portal used for the parasol because NASA would not let them do an EVA naturally I would not expect NASA to admit that my statement is correct irregardless or regardless true statement or complete fabrication of actual events
Maybe some of the parts is made in china
they were all made in Hollywood