How to follow up going to the moon, how about a space station? Okay until it comes back down.So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
60s and 70s space program stamps were a great staple. They were often oversized and brightly colored, something new at the time. The stamps were not just from the USA and the USSR. The third world often got into the act. you could even tell whose cold war team the country currently routed for based on whether they were touting the American or Soviet program. In 1975, Laos had an issue honoring American astronauts. In 1977, following the communist takeover, there was another stamp honoring Soviet cosmonauts.
Todays stamp is issue A932, a 10 cent stamp issued by the USA on May 14th, 1974. The stamp featured the Skylab space station on the one year anniversary of its launch. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
The idea for a space station was first proposed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braum in the early fifties. The science fiction writer Author C Clark was also an early proponent. A space based telescope and a venue for extended periods in space would be invaluable for research. At the time, there was also a competing United States Air Force program for a manned reconnaissance satellite. This program was cancelled when it was realized that unmanned satellites were much more cost effective.
Work on Skylab intensified in 1969 when Dr. von Braum looked for ways to keep NASA employed after the moon landings. The large Saturn 5 rocket that handled the lunar landing could be launched unmanned to get Skylab into orbit and leftover smaller Saturn Ib could be used to bring crews to the station. Several Saturn Ib launches had been cancelled during this period allowing for their recycling economically into the Skylab program.
The launch of Skylab was mostly successful but part of it’s solar panel power array broke off and left the station with less power. Some repairs were successfully made on the first manned mission to it. Three of four scheduled missions were carried out. The last one left astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Progue in space for a then record 84 days. The space station had an airlock allowing occupancy in normal clothing and the astronauts had private beds and access to a shower and toilet. Human waste was not spewed out into space but tanked and returned to earth for analysis. No doubt a less glamorous job at NASA.
Although the space station was left with enough supplies on board for future missions that could have also regenerated the orbit, the last mission was cancelled. It was hoped that the then in development space shuttle could provide a more economical way to visit the station but the space shuttle program was very late and quite the budget buster.
With no further missions Skylab’s orbit slowly deteriorated until it reentered the atmosphere and crashed to earth in Australia in 1979. A Soviet satellite had crashed to Earth in 1978 leaving much radioactive debris in Canada. Skylab did not contain anything radioactive but still created much hysteria about where it would land. No one was hurt but there was a widely seen light show has it gradually broke apart on its last orbit. NASA was surprised how long it held together during re-entry. The program cost $11 billion in todays money. The Chinese space station Tiangong 1 reentered the atmosphere yesterday near Tahiti. That station went up in 2011 and ceased functioning in 2016.
Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast the 9 astronauts that spent time on Skylab. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.