Re: [amsat-bb] Re: [sarex] ISS Transmissions

["Robert Oler" <cvn65vf94@xxxxxxx>]

>From: "Jose Mihotel" <jmihotek@gte.net>
>To: "Robert Oler" <cvn65vf94@msn.com>
>CC: <amsat-bb@AMSAT.Org>
>Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: [sarex] ISS Transmissions
>Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 20:09:24 -0500
>
>Robert:
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>Skylab did not work very well. It was too small and it overheated because
>someone forgot to design some thermal insulation. In fact it stayed for 7
>months un-inhabited until they figured out to go back and juri-rig a solar
>shade to make things barely livable. It was severely underpowered among
>other problems.It is all docummented.
>
>KF4VND
>

Almost all of that is wrong.

Skylab was compared to Mir hugh.  It was inside a Saturn V third stage and 
not only was the volumne large but it was quite well organized.

It overheated initially because there was an incident at launch where the 
thermal insulation (and one solar wing) came off as the payload shroud that 
was covering the telescope mount (and the wings) came off poorly (the Saturn 
had never been flown with that shroud before or since).

the first flight to Skylab occurred within a week or two and was commanded 
by Pete Conrad.  Conrad and his crew "flew" around the vehicle tried to 
deploy the wing, didnt, docked and then did a bunch of EVA's which 
eventually freed the wing and put some additional insulation (actually a sun 
shield) outside the workshop.

conrad and his crew flew a normal mission (I want to say 28 dyas) and then 
there were two additional missions of 56 days.  There were times it was 
uncrewed between those missions but I dont think it was 7 months.

Skylab was a pretty good system.  It could have been expanded, there was 
another one built (its in the Smithsonian) and well had a lot of growth 
potential.  It used a composite of hardware.  The airlock hatch for instance 
was from Gemini.

Indeed a tribute to the design was that after it was abandoned almost a 
decade later (not quite) as it was nearing reentry it turned on again and 
all systems worked "pretty good".

If the current space station works as good as skylab did well it will work 
great.

BTW htere was no ham radio in Skylab but...there almost was and it had a 
dandy helical array that would have been great for it.  I have some tape 
recordings of all the crews talking to Mission control and also some tape 
recordings of its "end".  I was awake as it made its last pass over Texas on 
its way to its fiery end in Australia and saw it in the morning glow.  I had 
my homebuilt telmetry set going (Apple 2plus doing the conversion) and my 
Skylab falling helmet on...



Robert Oler WB5MZO Houston TX

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