Word: skylab
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...what a view!" exclaimed Owen Garriott as he gazed down on the earth. Looking out into space, Jack Lousma was equally impressed: "There's nothing except a bit of light reflecting off the solar panels, a few stars and a half-moon." Both astronauts were outside Skylab, finally taking their long-postponed space walk. From inside the spaceship, Skylab Commander Al Bean sounded envious. "Well, you will surely remember this day for a long time," he said. Indeed they would. Before Garriott and Lousma re-entered the orbital laboratory last week, they had spent some 6½ hours outside...
During their long stroll, the astronauts worked four hours successfully erecting a second sunshade to protect Skylab's bare spot (cabin temperatures dropped as much as eight degrees into the low 70s). They also reloaded their solar-telescope array with fresh film and set up a micrometeorite-measuring experiment. Meanwhile, Skylab continued to be plagued by glitches. A coolant leak was discovered in one air-conditioning system, and suspected in another. A short circuit briefly troubled the telescope mount. Several external lights, intended for use during the space walk, failed to work, as did a video-tape recorder...
...launch. The Apollo rescue ship would have to be stripped of other gear to accommodate five passengers instead of the usual three and ballasted with 1,000 lbs. of lead to compensate for the resulting shift in the center of gravity. Astronauts Vance Brand and Don Lind, back-up Skylab crewmen, would pilot the craft to a rendezvous with Skylab and probably dock in an emergency port at the side of the space station (see chart). The three Skylab astronauts would then eject the disabled Apollo from the docking module to make room for the third crew, which NASA still...
...rescue mission will not be made until early in September. At week's end, in fact, space-agency officials were still hoping that there would be no need for it at all. For one thing, chemical tests at the Cape on samples of the oxidizer used for the Skylab mission showed that it was not contaminated and probably not responsible for the leak. Commented Kraft: "You always end up preparing yourself for the worst and you usually end up in a better position." He also sent word to the Skylab crew that they were still "go" for a full...
...That's what we've been hoping you would say." In fact, the astronauts got ready to take their repeatedly postponed space walk early this week. That will enable them to erect a second sunshade over the area stripped bare when a micrometeorite shield ripped off during Skylab's launch in May. The astronauts will also take the opportunity to reload their solar-telescope array with fresh film. Underscoring the renewed optimism at Houston that Skylab would survive this latest crisis, Kraft made arrangements to bring Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to Houston at week...