Word: skylab
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...preparations involved an extraordinary race against the clock. If the repair kit had not been ready in time, the launch would have had to be postponed for another day, until Skylab again moved into favorable position for a rendezvous. Meanwhile, the condition of the orbiting laboratory might have worsened to the point where any thought of salvage would have had to be abandoned. In fact, despite all efforts to bring down the temperatures inside the orbital workshop by changing the ship's angle relative to the sun, the heat again soared to more than 125° (after hovering around...
...underwater in the big tank at Huntsville, where conditions of weightlessness can be simulated; the astronauts found that it was possible to deploy the devices. But NASA gave top priority to a third, untested device: the so-called "parasol" canopy. One reason: the astronauts would not have to leave Skylab to put it in 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...
...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...
Successful deployment of the canopy would not immediately solve all of Skylab's problems. At best, space officials expected some three or four days to elapse before the shading effect of the shield would reduce the temperatures inside Skylab to a near normal 70°. Meanwhile, the crew would have to wait out the time in the cramped confines of their command ship, making occasional forays into the stifling heat of the orbital workshop only to bring out food and perhaps scientific equipment...
...world are preparing to examine the comet in many frequencies of light -from ultraviolet to infrared. Harvard's A. Edward Lilley even hopes to detect, for the first time, microwave emissions from a comet. Above the earth's obscuring blanket of air unmanned satellites-perhaps even Skylab's sophisticated observatory-may make the most fruitful observations of all. All the observations will be aimed at determining the structure of the comet and its origin-probably beyond the planet Pluto, where billions of comet-like objects are believed to be orbiting as remnants from the solar system...