Skylab Space Station

I think it's a natural question is so why explore space and some people have different people have different views on this personally to my way of thinking a part of human nature is to reach out and explore the fact of the matter is if man stops really stretching himself and extending himself and looking looking out and I think that's when civilization will begin to decline man just had that inquisitive nature and it's got to be satisfied I would write on the threshold of really a brand new opportunity to explore the solar system in the universe and to increase the value of benefits back here on home space lab itself is it presently concedes will provide us with a capability which grows on Skylab expands on Skylab provides us with an enormous capability to conduct research in space the core space exploration provides this spiritual quality it allows you to just go to the unknown and find what's there and hopefully by doing so you're going to improve your lot the other guy there could change film to change programs to repoint the thing to fix it when it breaks to take it out and put a new one in is in many cases not only the rewarding thing to do but it's a cheap thing to do first we've explored the moon and we've now going to explore in your space and finally we're going to explore the solar system all of this man plays an integral part if our children and our children's children are going to enjoy the same quality of life here on earth as we have enjoyed in the past we're going to have to learn how to find new resources and how to manage the ones that we have more efficiently and more effectively of course Apollo went on to take this to the moon but it also left us with a tremendous technology to look towards the future and as far as Skylab is concerned that represents a definite turning point [Music] six five four three two we having is your sequence start all engines running we have a liftoff [Music] May fourteenth 1973 a working laboratory man's first home and space on its way to earth orbit there to be occupied by three teams of astronauts in three record-breaking mission [Music] over the next several money a lot of theory would become fact and give rise to new theory about man about Earth about the physical universe but on this day a sequence of events began to cast doubt on even a first mission course as soon as we could listen in on the flight director net we realized something had happened to the lab even though it looked like a perfect lunch room where we had been observing it the meteorite shield ripped off about 60 seconds into the flight and with the meteorite shields gone this gave us the problem of overheating in the workshop so many different ideas in the intervening 10 days were put out as different means of being able to rig a temporary each shield or a permanent heat shield which would allow us to salvage the vehicle of course all the NASA centers were working on it all our contractors were working on it and taking an active part in discussions in the decisions that were made as to what's wrong with the workshop and how we're going to fix it we went to Marshall to work in the water tank with the proposed fixes talk to the engineers are working on it talk to the flight planner and discuss it of course of Management and we actually launched on the twenty-fifth of may with three potential ways of covering the workshop from the Sun about seven and a half hours after liftoff as we were Rhonda doing with the workshop the extent of the damage became apparent to us very rapidly we first confirmed that the one solar wing had completely left the vehicle and was no longer around we could see the damaged wires at the hinge line and of course all the gold foil which normally would have been underneath the heat shield and meteorite shield was exposed to the sunlight and it had darkened on the Sunside considerably then as we got around to the side where the jam solar wing was it became immediately obvious to us that this little tiny metal strap that had torn off the heat shield and meteoroid shield had jammed the solar way all the advantages which manned space flight offers are in the area of repair and maintenance which we've demonstrated time and time again on Skylab the matter of fact the whole sky lab series of flight would have been a failure had it not been for the ability of the first crew to repair the space station Pete and I went down into the workshop installed a canister that contains a parasol in a scientific airlock Joe was observing the deployment of the parasol from the command module I couldn't see the air lock itself but I could see this funny-looking orange thing all rolled up and skinny come on poaching out of there and then he said okay we're going to let her go and it just started to unfold and did a lot of flopping and kind of settled halfway folded and halfway unfolded we deployed it especially could hold it back down though it's about a foot off and and that was it it worked quite well for the rest of the mission I think on about day four or five we definitely know that it was no longer an uncomfortable environment it was warm but certainly nothing that you couldn't put up with kyle amber ringing loud and clear over the name guard for a minute of course not having gotten was laying out on our first attempt when we came up there he really had about half of the electrical capability that we should have had so it was very very important to attempt to get that Jam solar panel out i think we probably would have had any Skylab missions it has not been for the fact that man was able to get to the Skylab and to make it habitable and to repair it in such a way that all the missions were completely successful so Joe tried and then we decided to tighten it up again and I'd try and I got under it and the way it broke it let go and one big hurry and there I was launched into space again free-floating hanging on the end of this string and well by time I got straightened out again and looked around like there was a fan deployed thus very early man's presidents proved to be vital organ he'll start method it would be so in the missions that following at the proper time but in areas where you need man's flexibility and his initiative for instance in the deployment of the solar wing on the first manned mission and on a deployment of the sale that was used to shade provide some old shaded for the workshop on the second mission and on our mission where we had to resurface the coolant system or where we had to actually get out and unjam or move the filter wheel in the solar telescope cameras that's where you need man you need man up there when you need some freewheeling judgment and the tasks in space that should be assigned a man are the tasks that require him to use his mind and his abilities as unique abilities which certainly can't be covered by programming a computer the reason for having a complete package of medical experiments on Skylab as opposed to the case in the earlier missions where we did our medical stuff primarily before flight and then after flight was it we were going to fly much longer than we ever had before we were going to quadruple the amount of time spent by a human being bass from 14 days to 56 days and as it turned out we did better than that one eighty four days on the third flight the system we expected to change fastest in the body was the cardiovascular system the heart the blood vessels the amount of blood in them in a way they operated so our number one experiment to stress that system was called lower body negative pressure well we didn't have gravity up there so we couldn't stand up and that lower body negative pressure is a substitute for gravity a way to fake the body out and we were in that at four day intervals throughout the mission and from the very first time we ran it it was obvious that there were indeed changes but the encouraging thing was that these symptoms were present the very first time we did the test and they didn't get worse as time went on there was another major dynamic test or stress test that we used to determine our condition in flight and that was the bicycle ergometer you simply worked your heart and muscles in your lungs to the maximum capacity to see whether they all played together the same way in the absence of gravity we found that our ability to exercise our parts ability to move blood around the body the cells and muscles ability to extract oxygen from it and all the processes that go into a maximum exercise we're completely unaffected by zero grams described it was also considered important to check the response of the vestibular system or the little balancing mechanism within the inner ear and we did this by means of a rotating chair normally when you sit in this chair and rotate on earth can move your head it doesn't take very long before you experience motion sickness however up there we notice that after we were there a few days it was possible to sit in this chair and rotates almost all day long with no sensation or a motion sickness at all we took blood samples periodically throughout the flight mainly to make sure that the hemoglobin level in the blood was maintained at a proper level and that the body was responding properly to lowered levels of hemoglobin or red blood cells to make sure that there was not some sort of subtle effect taking place in zero gravity that would leave us more or less open to infection say on our mission we elected prior to the launch to increase the exercise period from an hour to an hour and a half and this was done mainly on the basis of recommendations of the previous crew they fell there just was not enough time for a good exercise period that you really needed more time we were also bringing up the little treadmill which was going to require time for you so we just ended up going for an hour and a half per day exercise it appears that that decision was a good one because we came back I think in better condition than has any other crew the Skylab medical experiments were perhaps one of the most important things we did during the whole skyline mission we attempted to take a look at man as he reacted under long-term weightlessness whether or not we can extrapolate that 84 days out to several hundred days incidentally it takes something like 400 days for a typical Mars mission we don't know right now but it does indicate that we're on the right way to in assuming that man can exist for long time since ROG [Music] the Sun turns out to be a giant Astrophysical laboratory it is made up of plasma that's a high temperature gases which we plan to use down here for many schemes and energy production [Music] and we can use the Sun as a laboratory to better understand how plasmas are affected by electric and magnetic fields how they're moved what their properties are there were a number of really fascinating views available from Skylab in the area of the solar study some of them seemed for the very first time by human eye in this case there was an eruptive prominences on the disk of the Sun which cast out through the solar atmosphere called the corona to very very high altitudes an expanding gas bubble this was moving out through the corona at a velocity of about 300 miles per second that has brought back a number of very fascinating views of these sorts of events well on our flight we were fortunate enough to be able to first of all record a solar flare from the very beginning all the way through the rise to the end based upon the previous experience of the other crews we were able to figure out what happens before a flare then beyond target and getting data as the flare came up we also know that when the large players erupt on the Sun they throw out charged particles which we've reached the earth in some 24 to 48 hours at least produce Aurora which we see here on earth the observation of comet kohoutek offered an unprecedented opportunity that was very bright and most notable was a sunward spike which was in the opposite direction of the tail very sharp and pointed towards the Sun comets are important to science because we are able to observe what we think is primordial matter that is matter which has been around since the birth of the solar system if the comma came from the solar system or if it came from outside the solar system then it's an opportunity to observe something which was not created with our solar system but in the regular stellar scheme of things we also had several smaller experiments intended to look at the ultraviolet radiation coming from stars throughout the galaxy in which we're in as well as a radiation coming even from other galaxies and these experiments were extended out the scientific airlock of the Skylab and looked at the ultraviolet radiation coming from the Sun allowed it to be dispersed so the image actually looks like it has a long tail on it and then he can see just what radiation is coming from each of these stars [Music] throughout the three-man visions flight crews evaluated the day-to-day activities of living to see what might be improved in future spacecraft design [Music] mobility with I like to refer to the Peter Pan mode you can really just push off and move around within the workshop the thing it surprised me most was how quickly we all adapted to to being fairly precise it's very much like the sensation you get when your skin diving or just floating around in the water well as far as working in zero gravity and moving yourself with a delight in comparison to 1g on the surface of the earth once your eyes see something then you relate to it and you say whatever is above my head is up whatever's below my feet is down doesn't matter whether it's before the ceiling every evening after dinner and all the work is done you know we and take a trip or two around the watering lockers or just go up there and free fly we also found that we could have quite a bit of fun doing tricks and stunts and slips and rolls that work possible here on earth you food aboard Skylab was was a very good treat when compared to earlier space missions probably the best feature was the fact that we had the ability through a warming tray to put all of our food out and heat it so that when you sat down to eat you could eat a variety of foods all at once I'll be the favorites of everybody's up there was ice cream and strawberries of course there is necessary clean house up there once in a while to all of our error was filtered through a big screen with a noble workshop and as the area went through this screen for the particles would collect on the screen small items I needed to be vacuumed up and so every day or two while we would back him off the screen he found housekeeping to be not as difficult as here on earth one reason was we had a planned place for every item personal hygiene wise it was necessary for us to perform up there about the same way is here we brushed our teeth we combed her hair we shade we washed we did have every shower he found however that we could almost keep clean enough by using the sponge baths by watching ourselves off with a wash rag although we did use a shower and several occasions and I think for future space stations the shower would be a good idea we slept in a sleeping bag like device which had straps across it so once you were in the sleeping bag and all snugged up so to speak way you felt very close to what you feel like in bed on earth we had on board of course I reps which is an abbreviation for earth resources experiments package the primary purpose of this package was to evaluate the techniques and equipment to be used in studying the Earth's surface the earth's resources multispectral camera consistent a battery of six cameras all pointed at the same place on the ground now if you are using suitable filters on the front of these cameras and putting different kinds of film in there some susceptible to visible light some that will measure infrared light some little measure other frequencies of light you're able to record what is being radiated from the ground in these different frequency ranges there's been a lot of significant data gathered in the area of the termination of false the Southern California area of course has been troubled with earthquakes for many many years and we're just beginning to really understand the false structure in that area we also have got some excellent photography of the false structure as it extends on down into Baja California then over in New Zealand we've got sometimes the Alpine Fault and we think that possibly better knowledge of default systems around the earth will give us a better understanding of earthquakes and we can learn to better predict earthquakes you can imagine that if we had the ability to forecast weather literally millions and millions of dollars in crop savings alone would result and it's just the first step of course of weather control we've been able to give them three dimensional looks at cloud formations in the areas of cyclones typhoons hurricanes and alike we've given them some photographic data that we think is going to answer a few questions that have never been answered eight anyway on just exactly how the earth and its atmosphere interchanges energy back and forth food supply is a very important factor for all of us here at home not only in this country but for the entire world of course first of all we can survey the amount of land that is devoted to the production of these crops we can even estimate what the yield is going to be depending upon which temperature and rainfall and so on is also we can see where there may be areas of infestation these instruments of photographs the earth in a variety of different spectral ranges clear down into the infrared in other words some disease like a corn blight may have been started we can see areas where the forests have had significant infestations so this all goes together to help us put together a better pattern of the total world production of food and other things of interest to people in this country and overseas as well we took a good look at the falkland current we could see some of the staining and this plankton blooming the little organisms that grow essentially in the deep water and then when the water wells up from below it brings up this green plankton and from space it looks like a green stain the plankton is sort of the bread of the sea and it starts the life cycle in the sea can track the plankton you can track the smaller fishes which we're going to track the larger fishes of food fishes which are good for commercial people we took some excellent pictures of the drought area of central Africa trying to discover the total pattern of the drought to see if it could be stopped in some way by suitable planting our suitable cultivation are preventing cultivation of certain areas so although we don't know the full techniques that would be used in this case at least we can get a sort of a handle on food production and enhance it in some way as far as men made pollution I think that probably the most outstanding visual evidence of this is in a great lakes and it starts at the source of the Great Lakes the western end of Lake Superior where you can see pollutants along the southern shore of Lake Erie you can see where every large Creek or small River empties into the lake we noticed in areas like Mobile Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi River and several other river areas around it you could see the silt moving out into the various harbours and Bay's around the world part of this I think we can probably blame on man because of poor soil conservation practices upstream much easier to take a picture to look down from orbit and try to survey the situation and find that areas most likely to be sites for future oil fields for example we think that this technique is going to make quite a lot of energy sources available that just haven't been discovered yet because of the vast surface of the earth [Music] the earth the Sun the Stars prime targets for Skylab investigations but within the workshop two experiments and demonstrations covered a broad range of science and technology [Music] in early februari 1974 the third crew retrieved for the last time the film magnetic tape the samples and specimens for return to Earth the operational phase of Skylab was nearing a successful and the ongoing science phase fueled by the aggregate of data from all three missions would last for the next several years I figured that boy [Music] [Applause] I don't think there's any real limit to how long man can sting in space as long as he never loses sight of the fact that sometimes then have to go back to 1g and if he keeps that in mind and keeps his cardiovascular system and his muscles in his bones tone for that eventuality then there's no reason to believe that man need worry about how long he spends in space I don't think there's a limit to that we all know that the earth resources are limited and in order to enjoy the benefits of the resources of the earth that we have enjoyed in the past we're going to have to learn how to manage what we have more efficiently we're going to have to learn how to find new resources to improve our quality of life here on earth the solar physics community has about five years a very intensive work ahead of them we have brought back so many thousands of pictures actually from the order of a hundred thousand photographs now of the Sun which they have to look through and analyze in order to better understand all of this activity was going on on the Sun also we have operated very extensive and complex equipment in Skylab and established that this is a viable operation is and you can do it we have learned from Skylab exactly what features are best what features to avoid in the way of designing say a spacecraft or space station itself or even certain pieces of scientific equipment [Music] you [Music] I don't think anybody really knows what man's future is at the moment how every we do know that what man has been capable of doing and not only is he always done he's always done it to his advantage so I think maybe space exploration is just the beginning of man being able to go out to other areas of the universe and once he's able to go out there he's going to find uses for it he's going to go out there and live and he's kind of populated and he's going to make a better life for himself and for the rest of the people of the earth in doing so [Music]