Skylab reuse study (NASA PDF)

"Jeff Findley" wrote:
The proposals to dock Spacelab modules (pressurized and pallets) at Skylab
would have been interesting. You could fly up, drop off some Spacelab
modules, and take back the ones where the experiments were finished. This
would have gotten rid of the short time limit on Spacelab experiments (which
was limited by the shuttle's flight duration which is best measured in
days).

This group often forgets that the Shuttle was a return to the von
Braun Vision - reuseable spacecraft and a space station working hand
in manipulator actuator to forge a bridge to the planets. The varied
schemes for Skylab derive directly from that architecture - Congress
declined to pay for a station, and Shuttle needed a destination.
(It's inherent to the very concept.) Sans station *and* Skylab, then
Shuttle loses it's purpose and stopgaps come to represent the function
of the craft, obscuring it's true design intent.

Keep in mind that Spacelab [as flown] was a stopgap - developed when
the space station that the Shuttle was meant to service persistently
failed to materialize. Spacelab [as intended] was supposed (IIRC) to
be a short term facility for special purpose flights which either
didn't require a station, or would have been adversely affected by
being attached to a station. (Like the telescope mount that so often
appears in early Shuttle illustrations.) The EDO pallet was developed
to help extend the on orbit lifetime of Spacelab - but was rarely
flown. (Mostly, I think, because there are few experiments longer
than the time range of a Shuttle flight yet shorter than the time
range of a station.)

Noticeably absent in this document is a CRV. Instead, likely due to the
shuttle's absurdly high predicted flight rate when the document was written,
the approach would have been to use operational (pressurized) areas of
Skylab or the additional modules on front, as a safe haven until a rescue
shuttle could arrive.

One wonders if that didn't also drive the plans for the free-flying
Spacelabs. I can't recall if they were intended to be manned.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL