Florida Today article on Skylab B

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