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JimmyJuly t1_j9zqz99 wrote

Reply to comment by 247world in NASA's Artemis moon program receives salute from Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin (video) by kevindavis338

Skylab was an orbiting space station the US built in the 70’s. It wasn’t in use for very long, but it was built and supported several missions. NASA credits it with paving the way for the ISS.

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PurpleSailor t1_ja0ad6d wrote

Skylab was built using parts from Apollo 18, 19 and 20 that never flew to the moon as it was supposed to. The Apollo program got cut short due to politics, costs and waning public support. Skylab is what became of Apollo's leftovers.

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Gwtheyrn t1_ja0k61c wrote

The Apollo program got cut short out of SPITE. Richard Nixon absolutely hated John F. Kennedy with every fiber of his being and canceling Apollo was about taking the one single shot he could take at a dead man's legacy as soon as the situation allowed.

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PurpleSailor t1_ja0np1h wrote

Lol, like I said: politics ... and ...

Tricky Dicky despised his political opposition and ran a smear campaign out of the Whitehouse involving other government agencies. I was a kid but I still love the fact that he had to resign, it was great to watch on TV!

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247world t1_j9zrbue wrote

Skylab, was an abomination compared to what was originally planned. It was basically the US saying we give up

MIR was a better program and I don't believe the ISS as much of anything to skylab

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JimmyJuly t1_j9zs51r wrote

You claimed Skylab didn’t exist. You were wrong, moving the goalposts doesn’t change that.

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247world t1_j9zusna wrote

Please tell me when and where I said Skylab didn't exist. I said the planned space station did not exist and it didn't, you might want to do a little research into what Warner von Braun had actually planned and it wasn't Skylab

Edit: and please keep demonstrating your character by down voting me, apparently you're unable to understand common English if you think I ever said Skylab didn't exist, I don't consider it to be the space station that was talked about, even NASA wouldn't say that, if I recall correctly it was nothing but a modified third stage of a Saturn 5 rocket, or maybe you want to call it the first stage I truly don't remember but Skylab was nothing like what was originally planned, it was the US giving up and doing the least amount of work they could to try to pretend that they hadn't

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Chairboy t1_j9zxsku wrote

> Please tell me when and where I said Skylab didn't exist.

They're probably referring to when you wrote this:

> of course there were some other things they didn't do as well including a orbiting space station

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247world t1_j9zze04 wrote

Skylab wasn't really an orbiting space station it was just one module off of Saturn 5. The project that was designed was nothing like Skylab. I was alive at the time as I said in the earlier comment, there was a lot of people saying that Sky lab was a joke at the time and has become more of a joke overtime.

My favorite Skylab story, is that one of the crews got fed up with the work schedule and staged to work stoppage for a day. I don't remember which one of the Skylab Cruise it was, I think there was only three so I'm going to randomly choose three

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Chairboy t1_j9zzida wrote

> Skylab wasn't really an orbiting space station

It was literally an orbiting space station, just not as sexy a station as you would have perhaps liked. If you wanted to say 'didn't build a rotating Clarke wheel' or something, then say that, but you said space station and that's what that other poster was responding to I think.

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bookers555 t1_ja0ja5k wrote

>It was literally an orbiting space station

No, what he's saying is true. The original plan was much different and was a far more complete station, instead they made the equivalent of making a boat out of pieces of plastic.

All they did was hollow out the second stage of a Saturn V, slap some solar panels on it and call it a day. And it didn't even work well, the Solar panels couldn't extend fully, and parts of it got damaged during launch which lead to it operating way hotter than it should have.

It was an underbudgeted mess held together by ductape, built from the scraps of the cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions.

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Chairboy t1_ja0k7rx wrote

Yes, but it was a space station. If you read the full conversation you’ll see the user doesn’t believe anything flown yet qualifies as a space station.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0s6mp wrote

Sometimes, you work with what you got. Speaking of Werner von Braun, nobody would ever have walked on the moon if it wasn't for that man. The Saturn five never failed. In testing or use

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bookers555 t1_ja0skmp wrote

Oh I'm not blaming NASA, I'm blaming Congress for just cutting the flow of money once the Moon landing was achieved.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0tzx1 wrote

Exactly. Thank you pardon my poor communication skills. If miss communication was an Olympic sport, I would be on the Wheaties box!

See when I get there? 😂🙈

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247world t1_ja04b5r wrote

No, it was not a space station it was a converted module of an Apollo launcher. If you want to call that mold infested thing a space station you go right ahead but even the astronauts that were on it wouldn't say that. Look at the plans von Braun had originally drawn up and then tell me how Skylab is a space station, it's basically an orbiting toilet

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Chairboy t1_ja06gf8 wrote

It sounds as if you have your own definition of space station that differs from NASA’s and that’s fine. When I was a NASA contractor I didn’t get to interact with folks like you but everyone I knew who did had their own stories.

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247world t1_ja07qyp wrote

I am going by the things that used to come to me via my grandfather from the Huntsville space flight center, Skylab had absolutely nothing to do with the space station that it was envisioned by von Braun Warner von Braun. Rather than a full-blown space station that could support many people they basically sent up a porta John. I don't know if you were alive at the time but I was and there was great dissatisfaction in those of us who were very interested in the space race. You can paint whatever picture you want but Skylab was sort of an orbiting science station it was not a space station. A space station in my opinion still doesn't exist. The ISS while a noble project, still falls far short of what von Braun had envisioned and I'm guessing could have made happen had they allowed him to do so.

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Chairboy t1_ja08ael wrote

> Skylab had absolutely nothing to do with the space station that it was envisioned by von Braun Warner von Braun

Nobody here said it was, and up above you didn't say that either, you just said 'space station'. Words have meaning, and your opinion on what is and isn't a space station is something to which you're entitled. In the meantime, I think most of the world will probably go with definitions by the people who actually go to space. Russians, Americans, and Chinese currently all have space station hardware on orbit but no doubt there's possibly a contingent of folks who will take an anonymous redditor's definition over theirs. I can't quantify how big of an audience that is because I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your parents and other folks who want to encourage you, but it's totally possible it exists.

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247world t1_ja09lg6 wrote

Well I hate to break it to you but I and many other people like me don't consider Skylab to have been a space station, it was an orbital Porta John. Many of the astronauts that were in it didn't have very good things to say about it afterward. It was the we give up move by the United States space agency and here we are 50 years later and we barely have launched systems when we should have established bases on the moon

My parents? Did you not understand me saying I was alive when they landed on the moon? I was really into this stuff and I'm here to tell you that no one considered Skylab a space station at the time. We were actually told it was a stopgap measure until they could put up a real space station and once again based on what von Braun wanted to do there is still nothing in orbit resembling that, there's nothing up there that's even close.

Now maybe it's not feasible, it's not my area of expertise, but von Braun believed it was doable in the 60s so I'm going to go with him. America had the best Nazis you know

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Chairboy t1_ja0a6xj wrote

> Well I hate to break it to you but I and many other people like me don't consider Skylab to have been a space station

At NASA we considered it a space station, but it's exciting to see folks out in the community with their own takes because even if their conclusions don't match that of the nations flying stuff to space, they're still engaged.

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Xaqv t1_ja0b982 wrote

Have about zero knowledge of what either of you are debating about, but enjoy the discourse and thank both for not using profanity to defame each other!

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247world t1_ja0bhet wrote

We at NASA... Oh I didn't realize I was speaking to someone so exalted

Once again, von Braun, the man who was behind the program and envisioned the real space station didn't envision orbiting Porta John. You can call it whatever you want to that doesn't make it that. Although a child at the time I was highly interested in the space program and had everything I could get my hands on about it. We dropped the ball. Now you can pretend we didn't but I'm here to tell you that we did and we still haven't really picked it up again.

I'm going to say that in the end the science fiction guys from the 40s and 50s got it right, it's going to take private individuals with more money than they ought to have to get it going again. Although in the case of science fiction they were the ones that got it going in the first place. Eventually someone is either going to mind something on the moon or figure out how to mine an asteroid and then it's going to blow up. At that point in time you will see real space stations.

Calling Skylab a space station is like calling Plymouth Massachusetts in 1621 a metropolis. I get it you work for NASA and you're butt hurt that somebody out in the general public doesn't think that that joke of a project was a real space station, I don't even think they called it that at the time. They obviously didn't value it because they could have kept it in orbit much longer rather than letting it crash back into the Earth, Australia if my memory serves

I followed the Skylab missions, I even had a copy of the orbiter. That's the word it was an orbiter. I knew if I ran my mouth long enough the words would find me. You're not going to get me to change my mind and I'm sorry your feelings are hurt however calling Skylab a space station would be like calling Scott's expedition to Antarctica a success, he wasn't even first, nor did anyone live from his party.

You can defend Skylab all you want it was viewed as a failure of initiative by those of us in the public who were firmly behind the program. I don't even think the space station was occupied for a full 6 months total, that's hardly a space station, you couldn't even call it an outpost.

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Chairboy t1_ja0dnhu wrote

I’m not gonna tell you what to think, just letting you know that your own personal definition of what constitutes a space station is not matched by anyone in the industry. Well, to be specific, your definition here that Skylab, the Salyut stations including Mir, ISS, and the current Chinese station are not space stations. That opinion is not shared by people in the industry, but you are absolutely welcome to your own fan theory/head canon. 

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247world t1_ja0kjfl wrote

It wasn't accepted by a lot of people at NASA. I keep telling you my grandfather brought me all that stuff from the Huntsville rocket center, why do you think he had all that stuff?

It's not what von Braun envisioned it was an orbiter it was not a space station

You know anything about the dry centaur project? That was an alternative floated during the space shuttle years and also never got off of the ground.

Do you have money on getting me to change your mind is somehow your life goal to convince me and everyone else that Skylab was some sort of space station when it was nothing more than an orbiter. An aircraft carrier could be called a city on the ocean but it's not.

NASA for whatever reason be it public opinion, or political apathy lost its vision Skylab was not a space station it was an orbiter, not much better than a porta John

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dern_the_hermit t1_ja0a53m wrote

Why can't an Apollo module be converted into a space station?

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247world t1_ja0c4sg wrote

It very well could have been, there was a plan for that 0,to convert the modules into a complete space station not simply a one-off orbiter. During the space shuttle program several former astronauts put forward a program called dry centaur, the idea was it would be possible to boost the large tank into orbit and convert them slowly into a larger space station, more like something von Braun had envisioned.

I think the real problem was that the public after the moon landing simply lost interest in the space program. Von Braun had envisioned an orbiting space station, we would launch from Earth to the space station then transfer to a lunar transfer module which would launch to the Moon and then a landern would go to and from the Moon and then that lunar transfer vehicle would come back to the space station.

I had everything that you used to come out of the Huntsville rocket Center about this unfortunately when I left for college my mother threw it all out as junk. I'm sure it's still available somewhere and it was fascinating they put a lot of thought into what they wanted to do. I don't know if it's true or not but I was told the whole purpose of the Germans who were building rockets for Hitler was really to launch rockets to the Moon. I often wonder what would have happened had the United States in the Soviet Union collaborated since we split up the German scientists involved

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JimmyJuly t1_j9zwseu wrote

Werner, not Warner.

Werner von Braun built models of notional space stations as early as the 50's. He drew sketches. And he had some interesting ideas about how might work. NASA and the US gov't had no plans to build these. The technology did not and does not exist. Even modern space stations are nowhere near what von Braun was touting. The idea that NASA planned to build these is purest fantasy.

In other news, you should call NASA and tell them they're wrong to say: "Skylab Paved Way for International Space Station." I'm sure they'll immediately recognize your superior knowledge on the subject and recant.

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247world t1_j9zz4d9 wrote

I'm using speech to text I'm surprised it didn't misspell more words, I think there's quite a few people at nasa that know what a disaster Skylab was and that it had nothing to do with the international space station, but you believe whatever you want to

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0scb8 wrote

As if it was yes his fault that they got cut off?

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247world t1_ja24iao wrote

No, it was multiple factors, the public believing that we were shooting a lot of money into space and politicians needing to line their pockets in different ways. If we let the scientist run it we'd have been on Mars years ago. All things being equal the US would have only continued to fund a lunar program at the rate they had if the Soviets had gotten there first.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0rt4c wrote

The ISS is not exactly a worthwhile project

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harkuponthegay t1_ja1hn0p wrote

What makes you say that? Pretty much all research and experimentation on human life systems in space has come from ISS, not to mention that the only vehicles that have undergone enough development to be human rated exist purely because the ISS gave them a reason to.

People can talk about space tourism all they want but the real dollars come from government contracts— and the government has spent a lot of money to build and maintain the ISS, that money isn’t wasted— it was paid to the contractors and industries that have now matured to the point of being able to make their own decisions about investment in space (see: satellite internet constellations, and SpaceX starship). We wouldn’t have a mature private space industry or nearly as much knowledge about living and working in space as we do now without the ISS.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1hwmy wrote

It's not really relevant to traveling through interplanetary space. Little bit of physiology knowledge gained. Not much else.

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harkuponthegay t1_ja5nhyp wrote

Great—Im glad that you’ve seen all the research from ISS and determined that it was not much. Must be true.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1i6vc wrote

Taxpayer funding of such endeavors is not the hill you want to die on. The entire miniature electronic world we live in now is completely due to the moonshot. And about 36 people are monetizing it. The taxpayer has been fucked over time and time again. Case in point The current situation with Moderno grossing over 36 billion on the vaccine +10,000,000,000 paid by the taxpayer upfront and paying a $400 million fine on government research that is essential to their product. It's morally bankrupt and any civilized society would either criminalize or under no circumstances, accept such behavior

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harkuponthegay t1_ja1ub0p wrote

I don’t understand your gripe here— the taxpayers are benefitting from the miniature electronic world existing— that is no small benefit, and it is enjoyed in equal measure by everyone. We all get to live in a world with better technology. In my opinion that’s worth the small percentage of my income that went towards those efforts.

If you are upset that there are people or companies that are reaping more of the profits from those technologies, then that is a complaint against capitalism… not science/technology or government investment and support for these things.

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