Word: airlocks
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Kerwin went outside through a small side hatch in the airlock module...
...long, snaking umbilical cords that provided them with oxygen and a communications link to Skylab and Mission Control. Then, as the sun reappeared, they began to make their way through the maze of trusses on Skylab's telescope mount, circled part way around the outside of the cylindrical airlock module and finally arrived within pole's reach of the jammed solar wing...
...place. Resembling a beach umbrella, the canopy is made up of a 22-by-24-ft. sheet of aluminized Mylar and nylon attached to a long pole consisting of seven 4-ft. sections. An astronaut could extend the pole and sheet out of a small airlock in the middle of the Orbital Workshop's exposed area. Springs in the umbrella's "spokes" would automatically snap the covering into a rigid rectangle that could be positioned close to the skin of the shieldless spacecraft. Major drawback of the parasol: the airlock mechanism would prevent the astronauts from seeing...
...their second option, the astronauts also carried into space a canopy rigged to a makeshift A-frame. But its deployment would require a more difficult space walk from the exit in Skylab's airlock module. As a third option, the Apollo command module carried the "Spinnaker Shade," which had been the original first choice of space officials. They had second thoughts about the sail-like canopy, because they feared that the light jet plumes from the command module's thrusters might fog the still functioning solar wings on the telescope mount. As he hung out of the open...
...like the spinnaker on a sailboat (the analogy especially pleases Conrad, who recently acquired a 34-ft. sloop). If this fails, the crew will try again after they have boarded Skylab. One possibility: two of the astronauts will crawl out of a hatch in the space laboratory's airlock module and try to position another Mylar covering over the damaged section with a long extension...