Station to Station

   Image Credit: NASA

PREDECESSOR: Here at MPA we spend a lot of time talking and thinking about the International Space Station. We watch live updates from it, interviews with astronauts on board, and spot it flying over our place in the night sky on a regular basis. 

However, long before the ISS was ever assembled 220 or so miles or so overhead, there was another space station that was also an international effort. 

Skylab was launched on May 13, 1973, 40 years ago today. 

Yesterday, we watched a live, special broadcast about the anniversary of Skylab's launch. 

   Image Credit: NASA

The discussion panel included a couple of Skylab astronauts we've had the pleasure of meeting in person here in Seattle last fall: Gerald Carr and Owen Garriott.

Here's a (pretty bad) photo of the kids with Carr ...

and here's one of astronaut Garriott as a Museum of Flight panel member.

So many great lessons about living in a space outpost were learned on Skylab, and those lessons benefit the ISS astronauts today. (For instance, they didn't bother building a shower on the ISS, because the Skylab one was so ineffective/inefficient. 

Skylab was our the first foray into significant scientific research in microgravity. Three crews lived on station, proving for the first time that humans could live and work in space for (relatively) long durations. 

As the kids and I were reading about Skylab on NASA's Web site, we came across this conceptual drawing. ...

  Image Credit: NASA

The sketch was drawn by George E. Mueller, NASA associate administrator for Manned Space Flight, during a meeting at the Marshall Space Flight Center on Aug. 19, 1966. By 1970, the project had been dubbed Skylab. 

As she listened to the Skylab astronauts last fall, Annabelle came up with this drawing. It's pretty similar to the one above. :)

In all, three crews lived and worked on Skylab: Skylab 2 in May 1973, Skylab 3 in July 1973 and Skylab 4 in November of 1973. They conducted experiments in space and life science, Earth resources and space technology and also oversaw students' projects. 

To be truthful, I think the thing I remember most about Skylab was its orbital decay and its remnants crashing back down to Earth. What a shame. The station was supposed to be refurbished and used again, but when the Space Shuttle program was delayed, those plans were dashed an in 1979, the station fell out of orbit. 

I remember news of this impending doom, and actually worried that it was going to fall on someone(s) and kill them. Fortunately, the debris that survived the re-entry burn landed in a remote area of Western Australia, hurting no one. 

  

HANDS ON: Midday, we took a trip down Interstate 5 to Olympia to meet a friend of mine and her son at the Hands On Children's Museum. 

It's quite a place - a nice big facility, modern and inviting looking. It is also incredibly, terribly loud. Seriously. I don't know how the people who work there keep their sanity. I wanted to run screaming from the building - and that's before I even paid our admission.  Yes, the place was full of kids, but they weren't (for the most part) shrieking or being super loud. There appears to be just waaaay too many hard surfaces and a lack of any kind of acoustic controls in the place. But I digress. 

It's a neat place, with lots of fun to be had. Here, CJ and Annabelle enjoy a cozy perch.

Everyone enjoyed playing with the 'pin' wall.  

 

There was a little stage to play on. 

 CJ liked running the sound board more than acting. 

 There were a couple of fun attractions involving tubes and suction.  Such fun watching the balls and scarves go 'round and 'round.

 We stopped briefly in the arts and crafts room, just long enough for Annabelle to craft a pipe cleaner bumblebee.

Out on the patio we saw the real thing. 

And the kids had lots of fun in a construction-themed exhibit. Annabelle enjoyed directing traffic.

CJ was very into the gear and he was super disappointed the darn helmet didn't fit him better.