Florida Today article on Skylab B

I previously argued that the Skylab program was cut short by mismanagement
(of a sort), one wasteful decision being to mothball Skylab B. NASA was
overconfident; it had no doubt that Skylab A would stay in orbit and
that the space shuttle would dock with it. Now a lot of other posters
have been incredulous at all of this, some even questioning that the
backup Skylab orbiter was even called Skylab B. So let me quote from
a 1998 article from the Space Online section of Florida Today,


For a few moments, let your mind wander back a quarter-century, to the
Fall of 1973, and imagine what might have been:

* A second team of Skylab astronauts busily preparing for their
mission to repair the once-crippled space station during a planned
54-day stay in orbit However, instead of just installing a new
solar shield to protect the laboratory from the effects of the sun,
the astronauts would also affix the Skylab Propulsion System to the
aft end of the space station. The SPS would re-boost Skylab to a
higher orbit, after the first three crews have completed the initial
phase of orbital operations, to prevent an uncontrolled reentry into
the atmosphere.

* Another Skylab orbiting laboratory, Skylab-B, is being prepared
for a 1975 launch, a mission that might possibly include a docking
mission with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The plan calls for Soviet
cosmonauts to join American astronauts in conducting a series of
joint experiments, a form of orbiting detente between the world's
two superpowers.

...

Fast-forward back to October 1998 and a jarring return to reality.

Skylab was never outfitted with a cheap and simple rocket engine
to periodically re-boost its falling orbit. NASA, penny-wise and
dollar-foolish, wagered that the space station would remain in
orbit until the second space shuttle flight could dock with it and
raise its orbit. As usually happens when gambling with scared money,
NASA lost this bet. Unusual solar activity greatly increased drag on
Skylab and NASA was unable to prevent its uncontrolled reentry into
the atmosphere. It burned up in the summer of 1979 - long before the
shuttle's maiden voyage - crashing in huge chunks over uninhabited
areas of Australia. For want of a nail, the battle is lost.

Skylab B never got off the ground. It now sits, cut up into pieces,
as the one of the prime attractions in the National Air and Space
Museum in Washington where tourists walk through its passages and
peer into its plastic-protected interior. An actual unused space
station relegated to the role of a museum piece - a sobering reminder
among the grandeur of America's greatest space achievements that
are celebrated at the Smithsonian.

(http://www.floridatoday.com/space/ex...8b/100698a.htm)

I wasn't making any of this up. A phrase like "penny wise and dollar
foolish" describes *mismanagement*. They are on the same page of Roget's
Thesaurus - see http://www.bartleby.com/110/699.html.

So the question is not whether Skylab was mismanaged - it certainly was -
it's why. It's not because NASA was led by bad managers; actually they
had some very good managers on board then. Rather it's because Skylab
served no good purpose. A backup Hubble telescope or a backup GPS
satellite or a backup comsat would have been launched - certainly if
they had spare launchers waiting as Skylab B had. Saying that Skylab
B wasn't worth launching because it was too similar to Skylab A was a
tacit admission that Skylab was boring.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 03:05:30 +0000 (UTC),
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

* Another Skylab orbiting laboratory, Skylab-B, is being prepared
for a 1975 launch, a mission that might possibly include a docking
mission with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The plan calls for Soviet
cosmonauts to join American astronauts in conducting a series of
joint experiments, a form of orbiting detente between the world's
two superpowers.

I'm not sure who wrote that, but "SkyLab B" was never anything more
than a backup in case the original SkyLab was lost (which it nearly
was). There was no money in the budget for Apollo Applications after
about 1968 for anything but the launch and operation of the first
SkyLab.

Certainly, there were never any "preparations" to launch the backup in
1975. The only thing being considered post SkyLab Crew 3 was a
possible 4th crew for 20 days or so. That died when Apollo-Soyuz
became a reality. And even Apollo-Soyuz was downscaled from what NASA
wanted.

Skylab was never outfitted with a cheap and simple rocket engine
to periodically re-boost its falling orbit. NASA, penny-wise and
dollar-foolish, wagered that the space station would remain in
orbit until the second space shuttle flight could dock with it and
raise its orbit.

There were also never any plans to dock a Space Shuttle at SkyLab,
there were only preparations to rendezvous (fly nearby) and send a
remotely-piloted spacecraft (TRS) over to dock with SkyLab and either
raise its orbit or de-orbit it (with the latter being more likely.)

As usually happens when gambling with scared money,
NASA lost this bet. Unusual solar activity greatly increased drag on
Skylab and NASA was unable to prevent its uncontrolled reentry into
the atmosphere. It burned up in the summer of 1979 - long before the
shuttle's maiden voyage - crashing in huge chunks over uninhabited
areas of Australia. For want of a nail, the battle is lost.

Two things happened at once:

1. Skylab's re-entry date advanced from the initially expected 10
years to only 6.

2. Shuttle's maiden flight slipped from 1979 to 1981.

Skylab B never got off the ground.

It was a backup that was not needed. The original achieved its goals.

I wasn't making any of this up. A phrase like "penny wise and dollar
foolish" describes *mismanagement*. They are on the same page of Roget's
Thesaurus - see http://www.bartleby.com/110/699.html.

Of course, that is only the opinion of a writer who happens to agree
with you (and you really had to dig to find one, I see.) It does not
make it so. Neither you nor the original writer seem to have any
understanding at all that NASA is not permitted by Congress to spend
money on things Congress does not want.

So the question is not whether Skylab was mismanaged - it certainly was -
it's why.

No, it wasn't. Congress refusing to allot more money to a project
(Apollo Applications) is *not* mismanagement, it's setting budget
priorities. Space was a very low priority in the late Great Society /
Vietnam era.

It's not because NASA was led by bad managers; actually they
had some very good managers on board then. Rather it's because Skylab
served no good purpose. A backup Hubble telescope or a backup GPS
satellite or a backup comsat would have been launched - certainly if
they had spare launchers waiting as Skylab B had. Saying that Skylab
B wasn't worth launching because it was too similar to Skylab A was a
tacit admission that Skylab was boring.

Nonsense. SkyLab was designed to prove that humans could live and work
in space for prolonged periods, and it was successful in this mission.
More advanced work in space beyond just proving we can live there
required a more advanced Space Station. When SkyLab was designed under
Apollo Applications, such a more advanced Space Station was being
designed. It was never funded.

Brian

"Greg Kuperberg"

.. A phrase like "penny wise and dollar
foolish" describes *mismanagement*.

You fail to consider that Skylab utilized a surplus launcher and other surplus
hardware for the Skylab physical structure. In a sense, adapting surplus
hardware to a new use is an evidence of responsible management.

(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:
I wasn't making any of this up.

So instead of you making it up, Florida Today made it up. The article
is muckracking nonsense through and through. There never was such a
mission as Skylab B except as paper studies. The hardware in the NASM
is the *backup Skylab*, not the proposed but never built Skylab B.

So the question is not whether Skylab was mismanaged - it certainly was -
it's why. It's not because NASA was led by bad managers; actually they
had some very good managers on board then. Rather it's because Skylab
served no good purpose. A backup Hubble telescope or a backup GPS
satellite or a backup comsat would have been launched - certainly if
they had spare launchers waiting as Skylab B had.

Utter bull****. NASA and the USAF/DoD are not now, and never have
been in the business of launching backup birds if the primary bird
functions normally. The few backups that have been launched are
exceptions to the rule.

Saying that Skylab B wasn't worth launching because it was too similar
to Skylab A was a tacit admission that Skylab was boring.

No, it's saying that flying the exact same mission (which was all the
backup Skylab could do without extensive modifications), served no
point.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
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big snip

It's nice to see a thread about Skylab, a program dear to my heart ( I
worked on AAP and Skylab from 1966-70 at McDonnell Douglas). Skylab cost
about $10B in current dollars and ran from July 1969 through Feb 1974. And,
yes, there were flight-worthy spares for most of the hardware. There were
two Airlock Modules built by MDAC-St. Louis, two Multiple Docking Adapters
built by Martin, and two Orbital Workshops built by MDAC-Huntington Beach.
The flight unit was S-IVB-212, one of the spare 2nd stages from von Braun's
Saturn IB ELV. The backup was S-IVB-515, one of the spare 3rd stages from
the Saturn V. The backup OWS is in the NASM nowadays. There was one flight
version of the Apollo Telescope Mount built (with MSFC functioning as the
integrating agency) along with prototype hardware that was not really
flight-qualified.

I remember hearing talk in 1972-73 about NASA possibly launching the backup
hardware after the consumables were exhausted in Skylab A. And NASA and the
Soviets also discussed a number of scenarios for what eventually became the
Apollo-Soyuz Test Program (ASTP). These included rendezvous of Apollo and
Soyuz spacecraft at Skylab A, at one of the Salyut space stations, and,
possibly, at Skylab B.

Nothing came of these ideas for a number of reasons. The Soviets were dead
set against the Salyut idea since Salyut in its Almaz configuration was
being used for military reconnaissance (Almaz essentially was what the USAF
MOL was supposed to be). And there were problems with revisiting Skylab A in
mid-1975, 18 months after the third crew had departed (consumables, overall
safety of the space station, etc). But it would have been interesting if
NASA and the Soviets could have pulled this one off. Nearly 20 years would
pass before something like this was done in the shuttle-Mir missions of
1995-98. And, finally, by 1973 the shuttle was starting to eat NASA's
budgetary lunch, leaving only about $500M for the ASTP mission in July 1975.

As we near the 20th anniversary of President Reagan's January 1984
initiation of the permanent space station program and reflect on our present
situation (shuttle grounded, ISS half-completed, $30B spent so far on ISS,
runout cost of ISS estimated at ~$100B, all in current dollars), it's
interesting to recall what one could do at one time 30 years ago with a
$10B budget, ~5 years of schedule and a different type of space station
paradigm.

Later
Ray Schmitt


--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

"rschmitt23" wrote:
As we near the 20th anniversary of President Reagan's January 1984
initiation of the permanent space station program and reflect on our present
situation (shuttle grounded, ISS half-completed, $30B spent so far on ISS,
runout cost of ISS estimated at ~$100B, all in current dollars), it's
interesting to recall what one could do at one time 30 years ago with a
$10B budget, ~5 years of schedule and a different type of space station
paradigm.

That comparision is more than a bit misleading, as Skylab's '$10B'
budget was greatly eased by the amount of hardware retrieved from the
scrap heap and it's generally low goals.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Derek Lyons wrote:
"rschmitt23" wrote:

As we near the 20th anniversary of President Reagan's January 1984
initiation of the permanent space station program and reflect on our present
situation (shuttle grounded, ISS half-completed, $30B spent so far on ISS,
runout cost of ISS estimated at ~$100B, all in current dollars), it's
interesting to recall what one could do at one time 30 years ago with a
$10B budget, ~5 years of schedule and a different type of space station
paradigm.


That comparision is more than a bit misleading, as Skylab's '$10B'
budget was greatly eased by the amount of hardware retrieved from the
scrap heap and it's generally low goals.

D.


Would a reasonable analogy be that ISS was salvaged from Freedom?
Just do a comparison from 1993..

The only *scrap* used on Skylab was the two S-IVB stages. The -212 stage
cost about $96M and the -515 stage cost about $300M in today's dollars (see
Chapter 13 of my book on the U.S. manned spaceflight program in the 20th
century for details.) and were bought and paid for by the Apollo program.
The AM, the MDM, the ATM and the guts of the OWS were all original equipment
bought and paid for by the Skylab program.

As far as *low goals* are concerned, Skylab produced an huge bonanza of
scientific information from the ATM solar telescopes (940 manhours of
operation, 127,000 frames of images and spectra), from the biomedical
experiments (many of which used the astronauts as the subjects), from the
Earth Resources Experiment Package (EREP, 549 manhours of operation, 36,000
images, 240,000 feet of magnetic tape data). And, not the least in
importance, the Skylab astronauts demonstrated once again their amazing
ability to fix stuff that was broken and keep a complex spacecraft operating
successfully.

My big quibble with the Skylab microgravity research effort is the miniscule
amount of time that NASA devoted to materials science (only about 30
manhours out of 2,881 total manhours spent on scientific research by the
three crews). I think this was a gross misallocation of a scarce resource
(astronaut time for microgravity research). Far too much time was spent on
solar astronomy by the Skylab astronauts to the detrement of the materials
research.

And, finally, I think it's a mistake to denegrate the efforts of the Skylab
astronauts. According to NASA, the three-person ISS crew is limited to about
20 manhours of scientifc work per week of which only 8 manhours per week is
allocated to U.S. microgravity research. At that rate, it will take the U.S.
astronauts on ISS about 7 years to log the same number of scientific
research manhours on U.S. scientific experiments as the three Skylab crews
managed in 168 days on orbit. With a two-person ISS crew, the productivity
is even lower. Skylab may have been *low-tech* compared to the ISS, but the
equipment worked well enough to allow the Skylab astronauts plenty of time
to meet and exceed the planned scientific work effort during these missions.

Later
Ray Schmitt


"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"rschmitt23" wrote:
As we near the 20th anniversary of President Reagan's January 1984
initiation of the permanent space station program and reflect on our
present
situation (shuttle grounded, ISS half-completed, $30B spent so far on
ISS,
runout cost of ISS estimated at ~$100B, all in current dollars), it's
interesting to recall what one could do at one time 30 years ago with a
$10B budget, ~5 years of schedule and a different type of space station
paradigm.

That comparision is more than a bit misleading, as Skylab's '$10B'
budget was greatly eased by the amount of hardware retrieved from the
scrap heap and it's generally low goals.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

"rschmitt23" wrote:
My big quibble with the Skylab microgravity research effort is the miniscule
amount of time that NASA devoted to materials science (only about 30
manhours out of 2,881 total manhours spent on scientific research by the
three crews). I think this was a gross misallocation of a scarce resource
(astronaut time for microgravity research). Far too much time was spent on
solar astronomy by the Skylab astronauts to the detrement of the materials
research.

It would be interesting to compare *planned* allocation versus the
*accomplished* allocation. Keep in mind that the major materials
science instrument (the Science Airlock, which doubled as a vaccum
chamber) was occupied by the interim sunshade, and was shaded by the
permantent shade.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.