Word: skylab
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...water, more than 2,000 Ibs. of food and enough scientific and medical gear for months of experimentation. Both inside and out, it would make a splendid set for a movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey or the TV series Star Trek. But it is a real spacecraft called Skylab, which will soon become the U.S.'s first manned orbital space station...
...Skylab is scheduled to be launched from Cape Kennedy on May 14 atop a giant Saturn 5 booster and sent into a 269-mile-high orbit of the earth. Next day, a smaller Saturn 1-B rocket will loft an Apollo command ship with three astronauts on board into a similar orbital path around the earth. Seven hours later, the astronauts will rendezvous and dock with Skylab. The men will then move into their posh quarters and prepare to remain there for the next 28 days−four days longer than the previous record set in 1971 by the Russians...
...astronauts and public alike, these prolonged earth-orbiting flights may seem less exciting than the Apollo lunar expeditions. But Skylab's mission will have far-reaching consequences. It will help determine if man can live and work in space for the extended periods of time necessary to make round trips to the other planets or moons. "On Apollo we were like Christopher Columbus going into the unknown," says former Apollo Director Rocco Petrone. "With Skylab, we are more like the Pilgrims trying to settle the New World...
During their pioneering mission, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr., Paul J. Weitz and Joseph P. Kerwin will not lack for elbow room or equipment. In addition to their Apollo command ship, which will remain docked with Skylab, there are four major sections of the cluster: 1) the 22-ft.-wide Orbital Workshop, which contains the astronauts' main living and working quarters; 2) the smaller Multiple Docking Adaptor, which serves as part of the passageway between the Orbital Workshop and the Apollo command ship and contains the complex control panel for Skylab's telescope; 3) the Apollo Telescope Mount...
...Salyut 2 until May Day, one of the biggest political holidays of the year and a time when the Soviet leadership likes to show off its accomplishments. If the mission is successful, the Russians may well steal the thunder from a U.S. space spectacular: the mid-May launch of Skylab, aboard which three astronauts are scheduled to live for 28 days...