Skylab a missed oportunity

[dwight]

I'm reseraching all the TV plans for the shuttle and am fascinated by the TRS free flyer which was planned on OFT3 of the shuttle had the thing launched in 1979.

This involved equipping a module which was a free flyer and could dock with Skylab. It was basically a propultion module with a TV system to help the astronauts on the shuttle guide it.

The plan was to launch in October 1979, dock the TRS to Skylab and reboost the station into stable orbit again and prolong its life by at least 5 years. At least three refurbish/replenish missions of the shuttle were intended to bring Skylab back up to speed.

Alas thanks to some pretty stupid reliance on faulty data to predict the re-entry of Skylab due to the increased sunspot activity causing the atmosphere to create drag on the workshop, the mission would have launched too late. In a massive move of short sightedness, the TRS project was abandoned shortly before the module was ready to fly. Using unmanned launch vehicles to get it to Skylab were nixed by NASA, and Skylab plunged to earth in July of 1979. Gone was any chance of reusing the station despite studies indicating it was still operational. What a crying shame.

[Obviousman]

Was the US system meant to be the same as the Russian TORU system?

[dwight]

Here is an illustration:

mm04.nasaimages.org/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size3/nasaNAS-7-NA/37302/S78-23631.jpg&userid=1&username=admin&resolution=3&servertype=JVA&cid=7&iid=nasaNAS&vcid=NA&usergroup=JSC_Digital_Image_Collection_%28nasa%29-7-Admin&profileid=31

[ka9q]

Was Skylab really all that healthy? I had heard that many of its systems had failed. It might still have been cheaper to repair than to replace, but who knows. I wondered the same thing about Mir, but apparently it wasn't worth the trouble to salvage for the ISS.

[astronaut23]

Imagine the kind of station we could have built if we had kept the Saturn V around and the money was spent to build the station modules. You could have a central hub and attatch Skylab size modules to it all launched by the Saturn V in much fewer launches than the ISS and have a bigger station too.

Skylab is impressive when you look at the internal volume they had to float and play around in. I love the video of the Skylab resisdents running around the walls of the station and doing sumersaults along it.

[ka9q]

Imagine the kind of station(s) we could have had if someone had figured out how to use shuttle external tanks as station construction elements. All that mass and all that room, almost at orbital velocity... just thrown away on every launch. There was a lot of talk about using them in the early days of the shuttle, but it never happened.

Skylab was built into what had been the liquid hydrogen tank of a S-IVB (the LOX tank was used to store waste) and that's why it was so roomy.

[Jason]

I sometimes think that the entire US manned space program has been an exercise in short-sightedness since Apollo.

[astronaut23]

Oct 23, 2010 13:50:11 GMT -4 astronaut23 said:

Not much more different than most other government opertations I guess. Although when the military or some other organization wastes a bunch of money they can better deal with it as they get a whole lot more to start with.

And no I'm not sayiing we don't need a military. Just that if they do something stupid financially it doesn't really hit them all that hard like it would NASA.