The Space Race wasn’t just about who could get to the moon first. There were other battlefields where the space race was fought. One of those battlefields was in building a permanent manned presence in space in the form of a space station in low earth orbit. Such a station would not only be a great place for space based research, but also a starting point for military use of space. Winning the battle over low earth orbit against the Soviet Union was just as important as beating them to the moon.

Low earth orbit wasn’t as glamorous as the race to the moon, so it did not receive as much public attention, nor political attention, nor ultimately funding…at least in real life.

But in the world of Belitopia, the value of the fight for low earth orbit was critical, and the Skylab series of space stations was important for long term American presence in space. Even though it was important, that doesn’t mean we focused on it. In fact, one of the great lessons for America on space exploration came when we lost focus on the value of low earth orbit, and Skylab I, our first space station in low earth orbit, failed to deliver on its plans and promises. Instead, it would take two follow on Skylab space stations, Skylab II and Skylab III, before America would understand what it would take to maintain a long term presence in space in low earth orbit.

 

Episodes

Skylab 1

Skylab I was very simple. Take the 3rd stage of the Saturn V rocket, add some solar panels, telescopes, and other research equipment, pressurize the vessel so that it could be used by shirt sleeve crews in low earth orbit, then send it into space. Apollo command-service modules would be used to transport crews to the station, and the crews would perform simple scientific activities over medium to long duration voyages.

Skylab 2

Based on the same overall technology as Skylab I, Skylab II was nearly twice the size of Skylab I. It consisted of two sections that were launched independently, each section launched on its own Saturn V rocket, each section the size of the original Skylab I, and each section looking very similar to the core of the original Skylab 1.

The two sections were joined in space to create a larger space station. The new station, which looked much like two main Skylab modules attached together, was assembled in space by an assembly crew launched separately over a 24 day period during February of 1974.

Skylab 3

Skylab III was essentially three Skylab I modules fastened together. These three segments were launched from three distinct Saturn V rockets, and were assembled in orbit using two separate three person assembly crews over the course of nearly three months.

Finally, on Jun 4, 1977, the first habitation crew arrived at Skylab III  and stayed on board for 301 days. Over the course of the next seven years, a total of eighteen crews would visit Skylab III. At one point in time, three separate, three person crews would inhabit the stations at once. Nine astronauts at once were on board the space station. Over the course of these missions, the longest duration stay by an astronaut was 522 days. That’s nearly 18 months, or a year and a half. The longest any human had spent in space.

The Skylab Program

The Skylab program was extremely valuable to our developing knowledge about how to live and operate in space. The research from Skylab helped us understand the impact of long duration missions in space. This was critical not only for the Venus Flyby mission, but for the future planned missions to Mars and beyond, along with our planned long term habitation of the lunar surface.

And it was needed for our research, development, and launch of Space Station Freedom, America’s permanently habituated space station. Space Station Freedom was substantially larger than the Soviet Union’s Mir space station, and substantially larger than any of the Skylab stations, and it became a critical jumping off point for future lunar missions and deep space missions. Freedom was our first and most stable permanent home in space. But that is a story for another time. For now, it should just be known that Space Station Freedom would not have been possible without the research that was performed by the twenty five distinct crews on board the three Skylab space stations.

Skylab was a quiet but hugely critical success for the United States space program.

In the world of Belitopia…

Flight Schedules

If you are interested in seeing the full schedule for all three Skylab stations, along with the schedule for all Apollo missions that visited the three stations, click here for a table with mission dates and details.