The definitive, comprehensive chronicle of America's first orbital laboratory and the untold story of the mission that paved the way for the International Space Station.On May 14, 1973, the final Saturn V rocket ever launched thundered off Pad 39A carrying not lunar explorers, but America's very first space station. Just sixty-three seconds into powered flight, catastrophe struck: extreme aerodynamic forces ripped away Skylab's micrometeoroid shield, tearing off one main solar wing and pinning the other. Starved of electrical power and enduring blistering internal temperatures of 130°F, the station was virtually uninhabitable-until NASA's engineers, controllers, and astronauts pulled off one of the greatest feats of technical rescue and crisis improvisation in aerospace history.In Skylab: America's First Space Station, Oliver D. Walker delivers a rich, scholarly, and deeply engaging history of this foundational yet often overlooked chapter of human spaceflight. Built from repurposed Apollo hardware in an era of tightening national budgets, Skylab hosted three successive crews across 171 days in orbit, shattering endurance records and demonstrating that human beings could live, work, and conduct transformative science in microgravity for months at a time.Inside this definitive history, you will discover: Origins & Architecture: The evolution of the Apollo Applications Program (AAP), the vital engineering shift from the "wet workshop" concept to the Saturn V "dry workshop," and the repurposing of an S-IVB upper stage into the largest habitable volume ever launched into orbit.The 63-Second Catastrophe & The Rescue: The ten-day sprint to engineer survival solutions on Earth, followed by the daring spacewalks of the Skylab 2 crew (Pete Conrad, Joe Kerwin, and Paul Weitz) to erect an emergency thermal parasol and manually pry loose the jammed solar wing.A Scientific Revolution in Space: Detailed accounts of approximately 270 experiments, including the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) that discovered Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and coronal holes, the multispectral Earth Resources Experiment Package (EREP), and Judith Miles' famous web-spinning space spiders, Arabella and Anita.The Foundation of Space Medicine: Landmark biomedical investigations using Lower Body Negative Pressure (LBNP) and metabolic tracking that unraveled cardiovascular deconditioning, bone mineral loss, and vestibular adaptation-establishing the clinical countermeasure protocols still used in space medicine today.Life Aboard Station & The "Mutiny" Myth: An intimate look at zero-gravity living, habitability innovations guided by industrial designer Raymond Loewy, and a rigorous, evidence-based deconstruction of the alleged Skylab 4 "crew strike".Reentry and Enduring Legacy: The 1979 solar-cycle atmospheric drag crisis, the station's fiery breakup across Western Australia, the humorous Shire of Esperance littering fine, and the direct engineering heritage Skylab passed down to Mir and the International Space Station.Featuring comprehensive mission timelines, complete EVA logs, technical specification tables, and full experiment catalogs, Skylab: America's First Space Station restores NASA's pioneering orbital workshop to its rightful place in history. It is an indispensable volume for aerospace professionals, space historians, and anyone fascinated by human ingenuity at the frontier of space.
