Skylb Research Paper

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Skylab: The First and Only U.S. Space Station The race to space between Russia and the United States helped drive the U.S. and it’s space program, NASA, to become the first nation to successfully land a man on the moon. Although the soviets were able to successfully develop and launch a space station first, Salyut 1, America soon after developed one of their own and called it Skylab. The Apollo missions that sent astronauts into space, led to the discovery that the astronauts had lost bone, muscle and tissue while on their missions. This new information caused NASA to launch investigations into the effects of long term space travel and founded the concept of a space station. Skylab was a space station built by NASA and initially launched, …show more content…

Congress had entertained the idea of defunding the mission as NASA was spending an estimated $2.2 billion annually, $10 billion by today’s standards. (LaFleur, 1) Before 1973, only three of the forty-five space missions lasted more than fourteen days and this led NASA to understand the need for knowledge on how man would cope with the effects of space travel. NASA sought to understand if the bone, muscle and tissue loss would continue through the duration of an astronaut’s time in microgravity or if it would plateau. They intended to study the psychological effects of space on the human mind and pursued scientific information on the earth’s atmosphere and observation of it’s resources, the sun and it’s effect on earth, and how space effected biology, botany, and metallurgy. They also wanted to know the technical and commercial applications for a microgravity environment as NASA was already thinking of developing future space stations. The future of space travel depended on the answers to these …show more content…

Commander Alan Bean, pilot Jack Lousma, and scientist Owen Garriott were sent to the space station in order to make more repairs and conduct more research on Skylab. The crew returned home after a 59-day absence from earth on September 25, 1973. A third Skylab crew was then sent on November 16. It’s members were commander Gerald Carr, pilot William Pogue, and scientist Edward Gibson, all of whom would set a new space travel record of 84 days in space and would continue to record what would prove to be very important information for NASA and all future

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