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Skylab Resurrected

© b.w. white

Skylab, America's first space station, was used for 3 highly successful missions from 1974-1975. After the crew of Skylab crew returned home it remained vacant for fours years until it prematurely disintegrated over Australia. Originally, planners believed that it would remain in orbit until about 1983, but unusual solar flares in the late 70's pushed it into Earth's atmosphere sooner than expected. Before and after its demise many people argued that Skylab could have been saved if NASA hadn't, for the most part, abandoned it. Others argued that even if it could have been saved, Skylab could no longer serve a useful purpose in the new era of the Space Shuttle in the 1980's.

The first question that needs to be answered is could Skylab have been saved by the time of its destruction on July 11, 1979? The answer is no. The Space Shuttle was the best tool that could be used to save the station, but it wasn't ready for flight until 1981. Originally, when the Shuttle was in its design phases in the early 1970's, it was assumed that the reusable craft would boost Skylab to a higher orbit during one of its first missions in 1978. By 1978, however, an operational flight (a flight after the first four "test" flights of the Shuttle which were considered to be a pre-requisite) was still years away. Another other option was to deliver a rocket platform by way of a rocket, but this idea never secured any serious consideration. A early design of the platform would have used Apollo type hardware to save money.

NASA, in typical fashion, had no intention of renovating a used space station in the mid 1970's. Immediately following the Skylab program, NASA turned its focus squarely on the Shuttle program. This revolutionary new spacecraft also meant that there was no room on the budget for any other manned space projects (except of course Spacelab; a scientific module that could fit into a Shuttle bay). Besides, NASA has historically had little interest in anything but programs that lead to grandiose plans or innovation. Add to this the mindset of the 1970's that provided the inevitable feeling, partly created by the great Apollo moon program, that the Shuttle would lead to a new space station and journey's beyond earth orbit. There was no room for a second rate space station.

Although, as we all know, little ever turns out as planned. Oddly enough, dreams of a space station would not be realized until the late 1990's. Budget problems, and the realization that the Space Shuttle could not make weekly ventures into space, were big reasons that NASA could not build another station.

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