Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight) Paperback – Illustrated, November 1, 2011

After the moon rush of Apollo, which was done mainly to beat the Soviets (although much science was learned from it), it came time to look at "OK, what can we do in space with a manned crew that is useful from a scientific standpoint?"The Soviets had already started doing manned space stations on a limited scale, and pretended they never really wanted to go to the moon (a lie of course. Their underfunded and under-tested N-1 moon rocket blew up in three tries, before they could even mount a lunar mission).But they had kept men in space for up to 21 days or more by the early 1970s. We wanted to catch up in that knowledge and better understand the effects of long term weightlessness and just being in the space environment on human beings. Skylab was the answer to finding out.It was built from left over Apollo and even Gemini hardware, using a converted SIV-B (third stage of the Saturn V) as the main workshop. So it was relatively cheap at only $2 Billion. (For comparison, the ISS cost nearly $100 Billion so far). Three manned crews stayed there for missions lasting up to 84 days and Skylab taught NASA well about human factors (limitations on working a crew to death) as much as about space science.This book is a much better history of Skylab than "A House In Space". It seems to be more comprehensive in scope and less exaggerated in claims regarding the so-called "mutiny" during the 3rd manned mission. While I liked "A House in Space", it seemed to be written quickly to capitalize on the return of the last mission. I would recommend this book, Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, highly to anyone wanting to understand more about what Skylab was, why it was done, and the insights and results of those missions.I would buy it again in a heartbeat. Sadly due to the Space shuttle being behind schedule and solar activity increasing atmospheric drag in low Earth orbit, Skylab fell to Earth in 1978 before it could be boosted back into a higher orbit - a lost opportunity to have had a real space station for the shuttle to fly to for extended missions, and on the cheap. While Challenger might not have been prevented, it can be argued that if we'd had Skylab available as a space research outpost, the Columbia tragedy might not have occurred.

An old story, but lots of details that I didn't know about.The astronauts who took a day off - and didn't fly again. I'm with them! The political arm wrestling over using a rocket that had fuel in it vs just building the space station and boosting it into orbit. And tasking for the guys in space - idle time is wasted time! Gotta fill it!...

For me, Apollo has always been where it's at. Big rockets, big missions, groundbreaking history. Skylab? A bunch of guys floating around the earth for months at a time. Dull, right? Your mind will most certainly be changed when you read this excellent addition to the "People's History of Spaceflight" series.I picked this volume up immediately after finishing the terrific "In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969". I was so impressed with the quality of "Journey" that I was certain that "Homesteading" would be worth reading. Indeed, I was not disappointed.Since few authors have ever devoted the kind of attention to Skylab that Apollo has received (aside from the dry, official NASA documents), a void was really waiting to be filled. Until now, there's been a serious gap in the historical record. One of the best things about the "People's History" series is its reliance on first-person eyewitness accounts. In this volume, the story of Skylab is brought to life by those who designed it, lived aboard it and supported it from the ground. "Homesteading" relies heavily upon lengthy quotes from the astronauts themselves, assembled from relatively recent (post-2000) oral histories. The reader gets direct accounts from Alan Beam, Jack Lousma, Owen Garriot, Joe Kerwin, Paul Weitz and many others. (It's terribly unfortunate that Pete Conrad's untimely death in 1999 prevented him from being similarly interviewed as he considered his crew's rescue of Skylab more significant than his Apollo 12 lunar landing mission.)The tales range from the high drama of rescuing Skylab from its nearly fatal launch malfunction to chronicles of the reality of living in space for extended periods. Other interesting bits include detailed descriptions of how the second parasol was deployed by the second crew and how two malfunctioning RCS quads almost necessitated a "rescue mission" of that crew. There's also a great and detailed description of what it was like to ride the Saturn 1B into orbit -- something I've seen nowhere else.With the success of observatories like Hubble, robotic astronomy is something we now take for granted, but in 1973 humans armed with film-based cameras were needed to collect images of the sun that could not be obtained by earth-bound observers. Skylab delivered a tremendous scientific return for a comparatively modest investment. "Homesteading" spends quite a bit of time recounting that scientific research. (My one quibble with the book is that the chapter "Science on Skylab" near the end recapitulates much of what was covered in earlier chapters.)"Homesteading Space" will make you pine for the days before spaceflight had become "routine" in the shuttle era. It will also make you wistful for the days when the U.S. had the machinery to launch a cavernous space station into orbit in a single shot, something that was given up in favor of a system that in retrospect seems like a regrettable 25-year detour.