(dramatic music)
Today, we take the fact that humans
can live and work in space for granted.
(dramatic music)
We take for granted doing space walks.
We take for granted that we can repair
a Hubble Space Telescope.
We take for granted that we can build
an International Space Station.
(dramatic music)
But we had nothing in our toolbox
to let us know for sure
that we could do that before Skylab.
(dramatic music)
The history of how humans
came to live in space
is full of ingenuity, passion, and sacrifice.
The first pioneers to live off-planet
are often forgotten.
This is their story.
(dramatic music)
Skylab was just such a frontier moment.
It transformed our understanding of what is possible,
what can be accomplished in human space flight.
It's an amazing story.
It's a story unlike any other.
(astronauts chattering, indistinct)
(mellow bubbly music)
If man goes to the Moon,
and then comes back to Earth,
then what will man do?
Is he just going to sit down and say,
"Hurray, yay, we made it"?
Or is he going to say, "There are a lot of things
that can be done in space.
Now let's go get together,
find out how to do that."
After the success of the Apollo Moon program,
its mastermind, German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun,
sets his sights on a lifelong ambition,
a permanent human presence in space.
We expect to build a giant satellite station
1,075 miles above the surface of the Earth,
a place there to study the universe
and provide a launching site for the exploration
of the universe, the planets and the Moon.
Von Braun has his eyes on the stars.
It would become known as the Von Braun paradigm:
achieve access to space, learn to work and live in space,
and then to move on to other heavenly bodies.
And it's really that flip that makes,
you know, people like Kennedy,
enamored with von Braun.
He's a salesman.
He knows what he needs to do to get this done.
He's got a blueprint for space travel
and turn something that had been science fiction
into more of a scientific reality.
(rocket whirring)
So people understood the importance of a space station.
Once we've used these systems,
once we've used this technology to go to the Moon,
let's use it to establish a foothold in Earth orbit as well.
The dream was Apollo without end.
So now, this huge national investment
in putting humans on the Moon
has also become a huge national investment
in developing the foundations of a space station program.
My gracious, this universe is going to get really huge
and it's going to get populated.
So, how can I then be a part of that?
We're going to put up NASA's first space station.
(bright music)
Von Braun's first step
is to suggest using Apollo-era hardware
to build an orbiting laboratory.
He calls it Skylab.
(bright music)
Skylab was the next logical step.
Let's take the technology from Apollo
and let's apply it in new and diverse ways.
On the one end, you're going to have
the Apollo command and service module,
the spacecraft to transport the astronauts.
This becomes your Skylab taxi.
At the other end of the Skylab,
you're seeing the large cylinder.
This was the rocket stage
that becomes the living quarters,
that becomes the house.
The other piece is the Apollo Telescope Mount,
cameras, the telescopes for Skylab's observatory,
and that has its heritage in the Lunar Lander.
Those three things give you the story of
how the moon landings turned into a space station.
It was such a stretch of the imagination.
It was sheer fun,
but a foil of a lot of work.
Skylab, this country's first space station,
will be operating in Earth orbit for about eight months.
It will serve as working and living quarters
for three sets of astronaut crews,
for flights from 28 to 56 days.
The most important immediate thing we need to know is,
can man live and work effectively and normally
in space for the long periods of time?
We need to know what happens to man
and weightlessness, whether it's dangerous.
If it's dangerous,
what countermeasures can we apply?
So that we'll get through those days
and perhaps in the future, fly very long missions.
Skylab was a very ambitious project.
Over the course of its life,
the plan was for it to accomplish great science
and to learn about the microgravity environment.
(taut mellow music)
How do you prepare for weightlessness?
If you're going to work and be in space,
how do you handle tools that you're going to work with?
And so one of the guys said,
"Did you ever watch your wife swim underwater?"
We said (chuckles), "You bet ya."
He said, "What did her hair do?
It just floated.
It just floated in the water.
Ah, that may be a clue to weightlessness.
The engineers build an experimental tank
to try and replicate the conditions of space.
Von Braun's secretary was named Bonnie.
So I call Bonnie and I said,
"Bonnie, we have what we think something
that the boss would be interested in seeing."
She says, "Dr. Von Braun would like
to get inside a pressure suit
and go underwater himself."
This is the guy.
You bet we were nervous,
but we just knew that we thought
we were onto something.
And so did Von Braun.
Von Braun came and says, "Ya, ya, it is good.
It is good, keep going, keep going."
(mellow music)
We now had a functioning kind of environment.
If you can train underwater, as long as you have air,
then you're good to work for an extended period of time
to simulate the weightlessness environment of space.
We were now developing a real asset
as far as training.
The place is NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, Alabama.
Located here is a 75-foot diameter tank
filled to a depth of 40 feet
with a million and a half gallons of water.
It's called the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator.
Placed inside the tank are full-size sections
of the Skylab Space Station.
(mellow music)
The plan is to repurpose the third stage
of a Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo
into a huge cylindrical spacecraft
with a habitable volume three times
the size of a Greyhound bus.
A simple idea, but fraught with challenges.
How do you make a space station livable?
How do we need to establish that
so human beings can be comfortable, productive,
and to accomplish the job that we need them to do?
We need to worry about more than just
the keeping them alive.
We need to worry about keeping them sane,
keeping them happy.
They've got to have a window.
You cannot send these people up there and expect them
to not be able to look out the window, okay.
Not great from an engineering standpoint,
but we're going to poke a hole in the side.
From a culinary perspective,
it is a fine dining establishment.
Skylab was certainly the high point of anything
that they had flown thus far.
I think there are some things with Skylab
that have not been matched since.
(tense thumping music)
As Skylab neared completion,
the Soviet Union caught the Americans cold
and launched their own space station,
Salyut, before their rivals.
(spacecraft roaring)
(speaking in foreign language)
(spacecraft roaring)
Salyut was a big technological achievement,
a flying laboratory, equipped with
more than two tons of scientific instruments.
And it was the home of the crew of three cosmonauts.
(speaking in foreign language)
So that was the first time that cosmonauts
actually lived in space.
(speaking in foreign language)
Part of the cosmonauts' mission
was to rekindle Soviet pride in space
after losing the lunar race.
One of the benefits from Salyut
was the ability to show TV.
Entire Soviet community was attached
to the first crew about first orbital station.
Now, cosmonauts were basically visible
by everybody every day.
Now, they had their own heroes
(indistinct) new pages in space history.
(speaking in foreign language)
The mission last for 24 days.
Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev
spent more time in space
compared with any human being on Earth.
They were excited because that was end of
the most successful space mission
in the Soviet cosmonautics,
and they were coming back as heroes.
(speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat music)
(speaking in foreign language)
(radio signal flickering)
They didn't know what was happening in the spacecraft.
And from that perspective, recovery crews
were ready to act for any type of events.
(suspenseful music)
They reported to seeing the spacecraft
opening the parachutes.
They run as fast as they can.
A few of them knocked on the window
and there was no response.
They open the hatch.
They got a shock.
They saw bodies. -: Three lifeless bodies.
Covered by blood,
no movement, with no signs of life.
They laid them on the ground.
Dobrovolsky was still warm.
(distant sirens blaring)
(speaking in foreign language)
No, it was a national tragedy.
(somber music)
(speaking in foreign language)
They would lie in each state for several days
and they tried to exploit their heroes,
so it was a mournful tragedy.
The loss of three men who were almost the members
of families of very common Soviet citizens for 24 days.
That was shock, absolute shock,
spread across the Soviet Union
and all other countries across the world.
In the United States as well,
President Nixon asked directly,
astronaut Thomas Stafford,
he represented the United States White House and NASA,
and all American astronauts on the funeral.
An investigation into the accident determined
an air pressure valve malfunctioned during re-entry.
All three men suffocated within two minutes.
The failure of that valve took the life of the crew.
What we ultimately find out was that
it was not anything that is a permanent red light
for long-duration human space flight.
The challenge of Salyut is we felt good about this.
Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev
were the first human who lost their lives in space.
(somber music)
Unfortunately, somebody must die
for others to live and continue exploration.
(upbeat music)
Finally, after seven years of preparation,
the Skylab workshop was ready to launch.
The most powerful rocket ever built.
I mean, up to that point, even today,
we have not seen the equal of the Saturn V,
has just sent humans to the Moon, has made history,
has accomplished something unimaginable.
And for the last time, for the last time in history,
a Saturn V, 363 feet of raw power,
is sitting on the launch pad,
ready to roar away from the Earth.
12, 11, 10, nine, eight.
We have ignition sequence, has started,
six, five, four, three, two.
The engine's light.
(spacecraft roaring)
Saturn V departs from the Earth's surface,
roaring up into the sky.
If you are there watching it, it is amazing.
The Skylab lifting off the bed now, moving up.
(Skylab roaring)
Skylab has cleared the tower.
While the sheer raw experience is amazing,
the telemetry is concerning.
There was a problem.
There's a Skylab control.
Preliminary telemetry indications are,
there could have been a malfunction.
We were monitoring and we started sensing
that there was some problem.
These malfunctions were indicated to,
occurred one minute and three seconds after liftoff.
Something has happened here,
and nobody's entirely sure what.
Nobody knew, the Cape didn't know,
Houston didn't know, Washington DC NASA didn't know.
And to lose Skylab at that point
would have been a financial catastrophe.
You lose potentially, you know,
two and a half billion dollar investment.
But it was more than dollars cost.
It was pride cost.
Why did it happen on this launch?
Where did we fail?
Everything they had done going to work
for the last seven years
had been preparing for the day
that this Saturn V leaves the ground.
And in 63 seconds, we just lost everything
that we have put into this moment, just like that.
This has Skylab control.
Internal temperatures ranging
from 170 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
External skin temperatures are running
between 240 and 300 degree.
The other thermal environment is insanely wrong.
There's no way it should be this hot.
It's not designed to be this hot.
(mellow music)
Skylab was fitted with a meteorite shield
to protect it from heat and debris.
As the rocket reached its maximum dynamic pressure,
this layer was ripped off.
It exposed a section of the external skin
of the habitat directly to the Sun.
We had a habitat up there,
but it basically was not habitable.
And there's no electrical power.
In the control center, the problems
associated with the failure of the Saturn workshop,
solar panels to (indistinct) are being discussed.
Skylab had two giant solar panels that were supposed
to come out on either side of the space station
to provide the electrical power.
With a shield gone, one of those just deploys immediately.
And you know, you can think about, you know,
a giant wing coming out in the air flow.
As the rocket's taking off, it's torn off.
The other solar panel had also tried to deploy,
but oddly enough, it was prevented from deploying.
A small strap of metal from the shield
wraps around the other wing.
It's still there.
It just can't deploy.
Now, that's a good thing because it saved that panel.
That one little strap of metal saved the Skylab program.
The planned 28-day mission is not possible
without deployment of the workshop main solar panels.
Now there are two problems that have to be dealt with
before there can be any discussion of people
actually going and living on this space station.
We've lost our heat shield.
So the thermal environment,
the heat inside the space station,
is out of control.
We don't have our electrical power system
that we're going to need to be able to do the science
that has to happen to make this all worthwhile.
How do we fix Skylab?
The first Skylab crew
are due to launch the next day.
Their mission is delayed by 10 days.
NASA enters a 10-day period of its history
unlike any other time in its 60 years.
What kind of fix would we come up with
in order to make it a habitable space station?
10 Days, 10 days to innovate,
develop, qualify for flight,
and pack solutions to two huge problems.
How do we go fix it?
24-hour work days, working shift work.
They were sleeping at work.
Mind-boggling.
I don't think anything like this had happened before.
I don't think anything like this had happened since.
The pressure was tremendous.
Failure here certainly was not an option for us.
To all the NASA centers, we're working on it.
All our contractors are working on it.
I am taking an active part in the discussions,
in the decisions that were made
as to what's wrong with the workshop,
and how we're going to fix it.
You go to the beach,
you want to be cool on the beach,
you take an umbrella with you.
Let's give Skylab an umbrella.
(mellow music)
We've got to have something
that can be put into the command module
that can be taken to Skylab.
Skylab had a couple of small science airlocks.
We're going to take one of those airlocks.
We're going to stick an umbrella out of it.
(mellow music)
So the parasol had to be created for nothing.
You had a room full of seamstresses
working on sewing this thing, getting it done.
Then you see them getting it packed up
and rushing it out to get to the launch site.
(siren blaring)
They were down to the last
30-minute extension, as the parasol,
packed in the flight canister,
was loaded for transport to Cape Kennedy.
Hopes ran high that the parasol would do the job.
Attention now turned to the astronauts
who would attempt to put it in place.
So the first crew of Skylab is Pete Conrad,
who walked on the Moon on Apollo 12,
Dr. Joe Kerwin, the first medical doctor in space,
and PJ Weitz.
They have been training for years for this mission.
Oh, and now you have 10 days to train for the real mission.
We have a broken space station.
Can you fix it, please?
(taut mellow music)
They must find a way to cut the metal strap
entangling the solar panel,
using the tools they'll have in space.
Schweickart spent many, many hours underwater,
simulating techniques for fixing the solar panel.
We demonstrated that
just by tightening up further on the cutters,
the large cutters that we had
at the end of the 25-foot hole,
that we could also cut through the staff
using those cutters.
And we were able to demonstrate underwater,
so that we had high confidence
that the crew would be able to get the job done.
Somehow, on May 25th, those three men
were in that space capsule
with the solutions to save Skylab
packed on their spacecraft, ready to go.
(spacecraft whirring)
They approach Skylab, it's beautiful.
(indistinct chattering)
1.5 miles, 29 feet per second.
But at the same time, it's visibly wounded.
(indistinct) Solid gold.
Roger, coming.
Suspected solar wave is gone.
It's gone.
(taut mellow music)
The place we asked (indistinct), Solar wave 1.
Is it that (indistinct) deployed?
(taut mellow music)
They're able to dock, they're connected.
(taut mellow music)
The next step is opening the door of a spacecraft
that has spent the last 10 days in orbit,
outside of its temperature constraints,
hotter than it's allowed to be,
and hope that you can breathe the air.
How quickly can we leave if we can't stay?
They go inside.
They find, thankfully, a breathable atmosphere,
but a dark and hot space station.
You had to lower the temperature of the workshop
in order for it to be inhabited.
Commander Pete Conrad deploys
the solar parasol through the airlock.
(machine beeps)
Some four hours after the operation began,
the thermal parasol was deployed.
It was then placed in position
close to the workshop's skin.
And then you have the umbrella
doing its umbrella thing.
I mean, everything is working.
When you see the edge
(indistinct) be free of anything.
There's nothing hogging it up.
Something has gone right.
This is turning our way now, it's a great moment,
but is it going to bring the temperatures down?
And it's not an instantaneous thing.
It took about two revolutions of Skylab
before temperatures began to fall.
Projections showed that if the present trend continued,
the workshop would be below 100 degrees the following day.
Pretty soon and pretty quickly, they can feel
that the atmosphere is becoming a little more livable.
We have a space station, we have a crew aboard it,
we've gotten the temperature under control,
still have that stuck wing.
You still don't have the electricity.
We've to get that other solar panel up
so that we've got power.
How do we free that solar panel and save this mission?
(astronauts chattering, indistinct)
If we don't get it up there,
we ain't gonna get it up, right?
The astronauts climb out of the airlock
and underneath the Apollo telescope mount,
until they are facing down the trapped solar wing.
(taut mellow music)
Unable to move any closer,
Kerwin must use a 25-foot pole, to try
and hook the jaws of a pair of cutters
onto the metal strap, and cut it free.
(taut mellow music)
We were doing a follow the leader
on our hardware underwater in neutral buoyancy.
If they ran into some kind of a problem,
we could immediately say,
"Hey, we've got a recommendation for you.
Try this."
Pick the red skin, Joe.
You just pull a pull back.
Wait a minute. -: Hey!
That's a beautiful place to cut it, right?
See?
This? -: Yeah.
You're in the right area
if you get through those wires.
Just take your time.
The problem existed in areas where
there had never been any plan at all
for an astronaut to go on a space walk.
There were no handrails to that area.
There were no foot restraints in order to be able
to anchor his body to where he could do work.
It was almost like trying to ride
a huge elephant with no saddle.
Nothing out there but smooth skin,
except for this one solar panel down there
that was now in dire need of some help.
(astronauts chattering, indistinct)
And I want you in a position to pull on me
on the right rope while I'm holding it in place.
(indistinct) I can't do both.
That emotion and tenseness
of when that pole with that cutter on it
was being extended.
And you heard the communication
between the two astronauts
was just almost indescribable.
You know, the best chance you have
is as close to the base of the staff panel (indistinct).
Is that right
that there's a wire bundle there?
Yeah, I got the (indistinct).
Pressure was we were at a peak.
Full? -: No, you're in front of it.
Now you're behind it.
You're still behind it.
We've got to make this happen.
That's the place to work.
All right, yeah, I'm sure I am.
Now pull it towards me.
Pete Conrad reported, "Strap is cut,."
Man, you could just breathe.
It's like a huge weight
that had been sitting on your chest
had just been relieved.
Solar panels came down.
Now we had power.
We could see very quickly,
the power that we had just fixed
was going to be sufficient
for us to complete the mission.
(mellow music)
And the flight crew had trained so well,
so hard in neutral buoyancy.
They just clicked.
They just made it work.
And the sweetness of success,
oh, how sweet it was that day.
(mellow music)
Dr. Von Braun, he believed in us.
He said, "Yah, yah, keep going."
(mellow music)
Oh, how good it feels.
We made it!
(mellow music)
That space walk is a major moment
for the future of American human space flight.
They have just proven for the first time
that you can do work, meaningful work,
meaningful repair work outside of a spacecraft
that you didn't even plan for.
They have saved the program.
They have saved the United States' efforts to prove
that you can do meaningful science in space,
with the space shuttle, space lab,
the International Space Station,
all rest on that moment.
(mellow music)
(mellow music crescendos)
(taut mellow music)
The first Skylab crew returned to Earth
after a record 28 days in space.
(mellow music)
In an historic moment of solidarity
between US and Soviet superpowers,
President Nixon and Premier Brezhnev
welcomed the astronauts home.
(mellow music)
Because it wasn't just the NASA thing, right?
This was an America thing.
I mean, the nation was invested
in at least few days of saving the space station.
It was a big deal for everybody.
So now, the second crew is getting ready to launch
and they're launching not to a broken space station,
but to a fully operational space station.
Only in the last few weeks in the time of Skylab,
have we really begun to exploit and see the potential
of man operating in the near-Earth environment.
The second crew came up.
They worked at a tremendously heavy rate.
They love it.
They love not only being there,
they love the work.
They are accomplishing incredible amounts of research.
The second crew conducts pioneering experiments
on the effects of microgravity on the human body and mind.
They observed the Earth's changing weather patterns
in more detail than ever before,
and carry out groundbreaking science,
including photographing erupting solar flares.
At the end of the mission, they come home,
they have accomplished 150% of their mission objectives.
The NASA press release dubs them the super crew.
The crew spent 59 days in space,
doubling the previous mission's record.
(mellow music)
The third Skylab crew prepare
for the last scheduled Skylab mission.
(mellow music)
And one of the tremendous stresses
that the final Skylab crew had is
they have incredibly big shoes to fill.
There is a big shift in the 1970s
from astronauts who were just rugged test pilot,
to people who could live and work
and do technically demanding tasks in space
that required tremendous medical and scientific background.
Their predecessors had done miracles.
So on the third crew of Skylab,
you have Commander Gerry Carr,
you have pilot Bill Pogue,
and you have science astronaut Ed Gibson.
The commanders of the last two missions of Skylab,
they were the third and fourth men to walk on the Moon.
How much experience did this crew have in space?
Zero.
This is a last opportunity.
It's a last opportunity to do research in space.
It's a last opportunity to prove
just how valuable a space station is.
The second crew accomplished 150%
of their mission objectives,
so clearly, there's a lesson to be learned here,
that we didn't assign them enough work.
(soft upbeat music)
The crew docks with the space station.
One of the things that Skylab was really interested in
was space adaptation syndrome,
a very nice way of saying throwing up a lot in space.
And so it was essential to get all of the information
about how the astronauts were coping.
Were there ever any times it was difficult for them?
What was that like?
They needed the data.
The pilot, Bill Pogue, noticed iron belly
or iron ears.
You could throw a plane around and never get sick.
Bill Pogue gets in space, he gets sick.
He was vomiting, he was not feeling good.
And the crew decided not to tell mission control.
At the beginning of the mission,
they don't want anybody worried.
We're going to be able to go in.
We're gonna be able to do work.
We don't want anybody to think
that these rookies can't hack it.
One of the fundamentals of a successful mission
is you have to have good communication
between the astronauts and ground control,
but this was threatened almost from the outset.
What they forget is that their recordings
are downloaded at the end of the day.
And this is heard on the ground.
A guy with an insensitivity to emotion
that Bill's got, to have a problems,
I think there's something else involved here.
People better start looking around a little more,
you know, of this motion sickness kick.
This is a big deal, right,
because this is not only an astronaut got sick,
this is hiding data, right?
This is hiding information
that's vital to the future of the space program.
It's also just, you know, not being honest.
It got picked up by the media,
so the New York Times had a headline
that the Skylab astronauts had been reprimanded
in their first day, is not a great start.
You disappoint your boss and get chewed out.
And then, you know, everyone knows about it.
(indistinct chattering)
Not only did the crew have to overcome this problem
of not reporting the illness and Bill being ill,
the program was heavy-loaded,
really early in the mission.
Because of the success of their predecessors,
this crew had to do more and more and more.
So it seemed like the deck was stacked against the crew.
The work kept piling on.
What happens pretty quickly is
they start falling behind.
And so, the ground decides to help.
(suspenseful music)
Mission control begins to schedule
the crew's tasks down to the minute.
They're sending up the instructions
on a ticker tape.
They have a printer that's just printing out a long feed.
But by the time they've read the ticker tape,
they're already behind schedule.
Feels like you're a monkey,
who's just being told what to do.
You're going through the motions of your master.
They were stressed.
You could hear that in the voice.
One explanation for this conflict
between the crew and mission control
is what psychologists call an us versus them mentality.
The folks on ground control,
they get to go home at night.
The folks up in space say,
"But you just don't get it."
Desperate to keep up
with the relentless schedule,
the crew starts to skip rest days.
The astronauts had simply no down time.
Performing more research,
performing more work, mistakes begin to be made.
As the counsels on the ground,
we knew that it was not going well.
If they'd done it already, that's fine.
Whatever they'd done, we'll take.
The crew was just not performing
to what was expected of them.
Okay, this is a lot (chuckles).
We need to find, you know, efficiencies where we can.
Every day, all three of the astronauts
had to attend a briefing with mission control.
We don't need to all three be on the radio
every time a home calls.
It was Pogue, Carr, Gibson, Pogue, Carr, Gibson,
rotating through the astronauts.
And this was working fine,
except one day, no one showed up.
Skylab control, Houston,
at 13 hours, 18 minutes Greenwich Mean Time,
standing by now for acquisition,
with Skylab IV through Madrid.
(static noise buzzing)
And the folks down at mission control were,
"Wait a second, what's going on?
Why aren't they communicating with us?"
(flat tone beeping)
This is Skylab control.
(flat tone beeping)
All three of them thought
that somebody else was on the radio.
And so that did create a situation on the ground
where it was misinterpreted as, "They turned off the radio."
These guys are sending us a message.
Sometimes, even accidental instances,
something that wasn't intentional at all,
can be the trigger to really let conflict come out.
And that's what happened with this missed schedule,
this missed meeting, that became the event around which,
finally, there was able to be some open communication.
At this point, these are two teams
that have been working together,
that are frustrated with each other,
this is marriage counseling in space.
We're going to look especially hard
at areas where we think that possibly
that you can help us or look for ways on orbit,
in particular areas that you may not be aware of,
where we'll have a scheduling.
The astronaut, Ed Gibson said,
"It was the first sensitivity training in space."
I think it will help you understand
our problems a little bit better.
Okay, that's now fine, Nick.
We'll try to pick up whatever we can
to help the situation.
So that was a turning point.
That was a peak in a graph.
Bill, are you up
and in speaking configuration now?
Let's check (indistinct).
Reading you a lot, a little bit of crackling,
but why don't you go ahead?
(indistinct) The one on you and the ground,
seem to be in disagreement on who's responsible
for some of the mistakes made,
and how do you feel now, over.
One of the things that the commander said was,
"Listen, if we were on Earth, you would not ask us
to work 84 days solid, 16 hours a day without a break.
That's what we're being asked to do up here.
It is untenable."
We're still dedicated to accomplishing all of this,
but we've got to do things differently.
We have to make adjustments in the schedule.
We have to allow flexibility.
Mission control said, "Okay, we hear you.
Here's what we need done.
You guys decide when to do it,
in what order, and what time."
And so, NASA gave the astronauts
the most prized gift they could have: autonomy.
And so, as a result of that,
it became the longest mission to date.
I've got the RF congratulating you guys
on transitioning from the first rookie crews
to the most veteran crew in the Solar System,
and as far as we're concerned down here,
doing an outstanding job all the way.
I think we'd probably sandbag you on a couple of cases
on schedules that you're aware of.
Just keep up the good work up there,
stay loose and enjoy it.
Think, to keep going away has been going away.
They're one of the best missions we've ever seen.
(uplifting music)
This mission showed us that
by giving astronauts greater rein
of what they're going to do,
you can have a more successful mission.
It creates the foundation
for the International Space Station,
where it's not enough just to be tough,
to have the right staff.
You also have to be interpersonally sensitive.
You need to be attuned.
You need to be a good communicator.
You know that in the stresses of space,
conflicts are going to arise.
You just have to learn to deal with them.
And so, more than any other mission,
this mission laid us on a course,
not just to be able to travel into space,
but to really be able to live in space.
How would you like the people of the world
to think of your mission,
the last Skylab mission, over?
I think I like people to think of our mission
as one where three guys went up and set up housekeeping
and tried to live a normal life in space,
to show that it could be done,
and man can live a normal existence in space,
and that he can accomplish a great many things
while he's living up here,
that just can't be done on the ground.
(bubbly music)
The crew returned to Earth
after living in space for a record 84 days.
They proved that with the right training and management,
civilians can flourish in space.
They end up coming home very much,
as much a super crew as the second crew was.
After these three successful crewed missions to Skylab,
we build an incredible amount of information
about how the human body responds
in the microgravity environment.
Skylab showed that not only can a human being
survive and thrive in space for that period,
they can accomplish incredible things while they're there.
Now, I'm going to turn these (indistinct) loose.
There.
Okay?
Now, I'm going to use these two soda straws
in order to provide the forces that I need.
Skylab proved
that some astonishing scientific discoveries
can only be made off-planet.
(mellow music)
It revealed that valuable astronomy
and Earth observations can be conducted from space,
but the most enduring legacy is the proof
that humans can live and work in space.
When the third crew left Skylab,
it's continuing to orbit the Earth,
at that point, NASA's expectation is
that without anything else happening,
Skylab should stay up until well into the 80s.
And at that time, the Space Shuttle program
was in development, and the thought was
to deliver a propulsion package to the Skylab
and allow it to be boosted to a higher orbit
and then used later.
Because that's going to happen.
We're going to send Shuttle up
and it's going to visit Skylab.
It was understood that one day we could reuse Skylab.
But the Space Shuttle program
is experiencing delays.
At the same time, the Sun that they had been studying
is more active than anyone had anticipated.
The Sun has an 11-year cycle
of really heightened activity,
a lot of erupting solar flares.
At the time period when Skylab was in orbit
and awaiting rescue by the Shuttle,
solar activity was an increasing part of that cycle.
This unexpected spike in solar activity
causes Skylab to drop out of its orbit.
(somber music)
(solar flares roaring)
And the realization is made
that Skylab is going to come down
sooner than anybody expected.
This very large object,
over 100 feet long, weighing 77 tons,
it's going to be re-entering the atmosphere,
and it's good probability that parts of that
will survive and impact the Earth.
This is a full-up house in space
that's going to be coming down.
The places on this planet where people live,
at some point, Skylab is passing overhead.
Skylab was definitely coming down
sometime in the middle of '79.
NASA had to respond to save Skylab, again.
(indistinct chattering)
There very much was a team
that was actively working to control Skylab,
to get it ready to come in.
Roger, sir, we have you scheduled
for an (indistinct) playback at 15:11.
How do we control the re-entry of Skylab
in a way that it doesn't endanger lives on the ground?
There was very limited control.
Traditionally, any sort of spacecraft,
to bring it in, you're going to have a retro-burn.
You're going to have an engine, a thruster,
that's going to fire to slow it down.
Skylab didn't have retro-burn.
What they did have was they had control
over its orientation.
Okay, point one, two, four, three.
Point two, zero, zero, one.
Well, the best case scenario would be
to bring Skylab down in an unpopulated area.
However, there's very limited chance to control that.
The worst case scenario could be that Skylab
could plummet onto the top of New York City, Paris.
Somebody tells us, "Oh, by the way,
there's a giant 76-ton house in space,
and it's going to be crashing down."
I think it's very easy to jump to the,
"Well, I hope it doesn't hit me." (laughs)
Where is this going to come down?
Where is it going to fall?
It's kind of almost like watching a horror movie
in that it's scary, but there's a fun to the scary.
I heard of people in the United Kingdom
that were outfitting a bunker,
an underground bunker to go into and live.
You see people buying hard hats,
their Skylab crash protection helmet.
Liza Minnelli apparently didn't leave bed for a month.
The sky is falling.
(radio chattering, indistinct) (tense music)
We're currently passing over
the eastern part of the hamburger continent,
as Skylab will make its final approach
over the United States. (indistinct radio chattering)
The decision was made to put Skylab
into a tumbling motion,
because after we lose control
with the solar panel separating and no power,
it wouldn't matter because it's already tumbling.
Last tracking Indication,
the vehicle is tumbling very steadily.
NASA commanded the tumbling
to bring it down over an ocean,
over an unpopulated area.
(suspenseful music) (wind humming)
(Skylab roaring)
The confirmation that it has impacted the Earth
partially comes from no tracks.
It doesn't exist.
You've got control, you've got command,
up until that moment of interface,
up until it goes into the atmosphere,
and then silence,
We've done all that we can,
but we're still waiting for that final word
that everything's okay.
We really didn't get indications
until an airline pilot flying
near Perth, Australia, saw it.
We have a sighting from (indistinct).
Go ahead, go ahead.
(indistinct radio chattering)
What we didn't know yet was,
was anybody injured in Australia?
Preliminary assessment by NORAD indicates
that Skylab has impacted in the Southern Indian Ocean,
southwest the coast of Australia.
Reports came in about pieces being found
and no reports of damage or injuries.
Finally, once again, for the last time for Skylab,
it's all paid off.
(mid-tempo music)
(indistinct chattering)
Interestingly enough, the government of Australia
did fine the United States government $400 for littering.
(mellow strings music)
Without Skylab, we wouldn't be as far as we are today
on the International Space Station,
or as close as we are now to living on the Moon and Mars.
It's the turn now to what do we need to do
to live off the planet for long periods of time,
and to achieve the great science
that can be conducted nowhere else.
The world is about to enter
a golden era of space habitats.
There's the International Space Station
that's up there today.
China just launched the first module
of a new space station.
Russia is working on a future space station.
NASA and international partners are preparing Gateway,
that will be a space station and orbit around the Moon.
And you're going to see habitats on the surface of the Moon
as astronauts are going for long-duration missions there.
And finally, you know, ultimately,
the habitats that we're going to see
on the surface of Mars.
We are going to leave this little blue marble
that we live on, and we're going to begin
to make homes in our cosmos.
And when we do, the step,
that first toe dipped in the water,
that made us homesteaders of space with Skylab.
(pensive music)
I'm getting used to knowing how to fly.
When I was young, I used to fly in dream,
up ways so high and easy, it would seem,
as if Earth wheeled and slanted and not I,
and now it's real.
We move that way at will,
like dust motes in a sunbeam.
Push away, drift down your own trajectory,
tumble, play.
And who can say what moves
and what is still?
In this high sunlit ship,
the laws of space, height without vertigo,
mass without weight,
and train our nerve ways to their easy pace,
as if this rhythm were our native state.
What if man were an exile from the sky?
Are we perhaps remembering how to fly?
(soft techno music)
(mellow music)