Category Manned Spaceflight Log II—2006-2012

The news of a yearlong residency on the ISS came a few weeks after closer cooperation between Europe and China was reported. This could, it was sug­gested, develop into the possibility of an ESA astronaut flying aboard a Chinese spacecraft by 2020. Whether this would be to a Tiangong station or the ISS was not clear and remains an open issue to be decided as objections, technical issues, and logistics are debated in the coming years. With the expected reduction or demise of ISS operations after 2020 and the predicted increase in Chinese space station operations from that date, clearly the opportunity to continue and perhaps increase the rate of flying European astronauts on long-duration missions has a certain Eastern promise to it.

The Chinese have also indicated a desire to create their own large space station from which to expand their manned space flight operations, possibly looking towards the Moon and perhaps far beyond. Their first steps were com­pleted between 1999 and 2008 with Shenzhou operations, developing manned space flight capability and the infrastructure to support that effort in launch, orbital operations, and recovery. Their successful maiden flight of one person in 2003 drew upon the experiences (and particularly the design) of the Russian program, giving the Chinese a head start in developing their own program. They were to build upon this experience far quicker than either the Soviets or Americans had been able to in the 1960s. By 2008, the Chinese had demonstrated the capability of flying up to three crew members for several days, as well as EVA capability that could be used to support future space station operations. What had taken the Soviets eight missions to achieve with Vostok/Voskhod and the Americans around 10 missions with Mercury and Gemini, the Chinese accomplished in just three flights.

There were of course significant differences between the 1960s and the 2000s, most notably in the number of missions flown in the 1960s and what other achievements had been accomplished. The Soviets had flown 16 manned missions between April 1961 and June 1970, including the first man in space, first female, first group flight, first crew, first EVA, first manned docking and crew transfer (by EVA) and longest solo manned space flight at 18 days. In contrast, the Soviets had only achieved one manned docking and relatively little spacewalking experi­ence in comparison with the Americans during Gemini and Apollo. The five Apollo missions dispatched to the Moon between December 1968 and April 1970 added very little to the database of low Earth orbit operations, but volumes to explorations away from the planet. It is certain that the Chinese will have studied the lessons learned by the Americans during their unmanned precursor lunar mis­sions and the Apollo experience, and from the Soviet successes and setbacks in both their manned and unmanned lunar exploration program.

Although the Moon may indeed be a future target of Chinese space planners, the immediate focus for the next few years is the creation of a series of space stations leading to the establishment of a large complex. This will be similar to the gradual development of Soviet space station operations at Salyut, Mir, and finally the ISS, but again over a much shorter timescale and with far fewer missions. Once again, the Chinese will be learning from others in order to advance their own program without the need to mount unnecessary and expensive development missions. Official Chinese reports have stated that Tiangong-1 is intended as an experimental test bed, designed to develop the skills of rendezvous and docking that are essential to support a larger space station. The first Tiangong is expected to support three missions, one unmanned (Shenzhou 8 in 2011) and two manned (Shenzhou 9 in 2012 and Shenzhou 10 by 2013). Once these missions are com­pleted, the station will be de-orbited later in 2013, to be replaced by the much larger Tiangong-2 and Tiangong-3 laboratories.

According to the Chinese, Tiangong-2 will be able to support much more sophisticated experiments and research than its pioneering predecessor. Tiangong 3 will be a multimodule design (possibly resembling the Mir configuration) which will be resupplied by Progress-type unmanned freighters. The Chinese goal is to have a fully functional (ISS class) space station in orbit by 2020. If this does occur, it will have taken them less than 10 years, in comparison with the 40 yr period between the first Salyut and completion of the ISS!

2010-029A

June 16, 2010 (Moscow time)

Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of

Kazakhstan

November 26, 2010

52 miles northeast of Arkalyk, Republic of Kazakhstan Soyuz-FG (serial number Ы5000-032),

Soyuz TMA-19 (serial number 229)

163 da 7h 10 min 47 s Olympus

ISS-24/25 resident crew transport (23S)

Flight Crew

YURCHIKHIN, Fyodor Nikolayevich, 51, civilian, RSA, Soyuz commander,

ISS flight engineer, third mission

Previous missions: STS-112 (2002), TMA-10 (2007)

WALKER, Shannon, 45, civilian, NASA, Soyuz/ISS flight engineer WHEELOCK, Douglas Harry, 50, NASA, Soyuz/ISS flight engineer, second mission

Previous mission: STS-120 (2007)

Flight log

On arrival at the station on TMA-19 on June 17, this crew served as flight engineers on ISS-24 before taking over as the prime core crew of ISS-25 on September 22, when Douglas Wheelock assumed ISS command from the outgoing Skvortsov. Under the ISS-25 residency, the crew continued the extensive scientific program as a three-person crew until early October, when the TMA-01M trio arrived to complete the ISS-25 complement. During their 163-day space odyssey, the TMA-19 crew would spend approximately 160 days aboard the station, 97 of them as members of the ISS-24 crew and then a further 63 in prime command of ISS-25.

The TMA-19 crew relocated their spacecraft at the station very early in the residency. The docking at the aft port of Zvezda on June 17 was followed just nine days later by the relocation of their Soyuz to the Rassvet module, allowing future arrivals to use the aft Service Module port. The 25 min operation was delayed by 75 minutes due to difficulties feathering the P4 truss solar wings to allow the smooth passage of the Soyuz. Following the docking, the crew inspected the docking cone of Rassvet to document any scuff marks as a result of the linkup. This was the first time a Soyuz had docked with the Rassvet module.

When the second half of the ISS-25 crew arrived in the first TMA-M vehicle, the science program returned to its full potential. As with all new crews arriving on the station, formalities and zero-g adaptation took a few days, but the science work had to continue, as did preparations for receiving the next Shuttle mission (STS-133). On October 18, the Russian members of the international crew took part in an all-Russian census, confirming they were Russian nationals. Yurchikhin, who had participated, during 2002, in a previous census from orbit, revealed that he also had Greek roots.

On October 20, the Progress M-07M engine fired for a 3 min 49 s burn to raise the orbital altitude of the complex by just 890 m (2920 ft), a small but essential alteration to assist with the upcoming docking of Progress M-08M and STS-133. Five days later, on October 25, Progress M-05M was undocked from the Pirs port and placed in a parking orbit until it reentered on November 15. On October 30, a new resupply craft, Progress M-08M, docked at Pirs. Aboard the new craft were 6,3201b (1,293.07 kg) of supplies and a few treats for the upcoming Halloween holiday.

On October 31, the 10th anniversary of the launch of the first resident crew to the station (ISS-1 aboard Soyuz TM-31) was observed, followed on November 2 by the anniversary of the docking and transfer of the first expedition into the station to start continuous occupation. In 10 years of successive crew exchanges, 24 resident crews comprising 196 crew members had logged 1.5 billion miles (2.415 billion km) or 57,361 manned orbits of Earth. NASA Administrator and former

Shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden Ukened the achievement to a modern day Star Trek.

With the news that Shuttle mission STS-133 had been delayed to the end of November at the earliest, the crew focused on preparing for a Russian section EVA, as well as maintaining the routine-but-necessary housekeeping and maintenance program that had kept the station operating successfully for 10 years.

On November 15, Yurchikhin and Skripochka conducted a 6h 27min EVA from the Pirs module wearing Orlan suits. A small workstation was installed on the starboard side of Zvezda and samples were taken from underneath the insula­tion covering on both Pirs and Zvezda for later analysis on Earth. A new materials experiment was deployed on Pirs and a robotic experiment was cleaned and removed for return inside the station. The cosmonauts found it difficult to remove some insulation on Rassvet that was blocking the installation of a TV camera, so the camera was returned to the station while the problem was evalu­ated. The day after the EVA saw the cosmonauts performing post-EVA maintenance on the suits, including drying them, performing systems checks, and discharging the suit batteries.

The return of the ISS-25 crew was scheduled four days earlier than planned due to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan during the first two days in December. This would require clear air space in the vicinity, even from descending spacecraft! Anticipating their homecoming, Wheelock was looking forward to a shower not having had one since June. Walker was told, not very encouragingly, that a Soyuz landing was very similar to “a series of explosions followed by a car crash!” After conducting a “considerable amount of science” on their expedition, the TMA-19 crew’s stay on the station was coming to an end. Their Soyuz was checked over and Kelly officially took over command of the station on November 24, beginning the 26th expedition.

Late on November 25, the three returning crew members entered their Soyuz and closed the hatches. Undocking occurred on November 26 and they landed 3 hours 23 minutes later in Kazakhstan after a 163-day mission. In just over 10 years, a total of 25 expeditions had been completed successfully. Now, the first crew of the second decade of operations to occupy the station was on board, with several other crews in various stages of training across the globe.

Milestones

277th manned space ffight 112th Russian manned space flight 105th manned Soyuz flight 19th manned Soyuz TMA mission 23rd ISS Soyuz mission (23S)

24/25th ISS resident crew

100th launch dedicated to ISS operations since November 1998 Walker becomes first Houston, Texas, U. S.A. citizen in space First Soyuz docking with Rassvet module

First time two women were on main ISS resident crew (Walker and Caldwell Dyson)

Ten years of constant resident crew operations completed (November 2)

Studies, plans, and discussions on what exactly would follow the Space Shuttle had circulated for years before the decision was finally made to retire the vehicles following the loss of Columbia in 2003. During these years the growth of commer­cial interest in developing a new launch system and spacecraft varied considerably but recently there have been a number of companies who have expressed interest in creating an American launch and crew/cargo transport system independent of NASA.

By 2010, in an effort to replace the Space Shuttle program for the transportation of crews and/or cargo to the ISS, NASA funded Space Act Agree­ments with five companies. The aim was to develop potential capabilities for launching American astronauts and supporting logistics into space from launch sites within the United States. A sixth company, ATK-EADS, was included as an unsolicited and unfunded proposal in May 2012. The development of a new American crew vehicle is conducted under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) Program.

The six were

• Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)

• Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital)

• Blue Origin

• ATK-EADS

• Sierra Nevada Corporation, and

• The Boeing Company.

In addition, the American space agency signed agreements with Alliant Technologies Inc., Excalibur Almaz Inc., and United Launch Alliance, LLC for the exchange of technical information and expertise.

There are moments in human history that define significant change and development. One of the more positive moments occurred on October 4, 1957. On that day, the world’s first artificial satellite was placed into Earth orbit, signifying the dawn of what became known as the “space age”. That defining moment, when Sputnik attained a successful orbital insertion, finally unlocked the age-old secret of flight beyond the confines of our planet and brought human dreams, stories, and plans to explore “space” closer to fruition and reality. The rapid pace of advancement has become a feature of space exploration since that date. After those centuries of hopes and desires, another significant development occurred but a short two and one half years later.

Over a decade later, a third suborbital trajectory was inadvertently flown during an aborted Soyuz launch in April 1975. In this case, a spent stage of the R-7 launch vehicle failed to separate cleanly and caused the remaining launch vehicle to veer off course, triggering an abort just a few minutes into the mission before completing an emergency parachute recovery just over 21 minutes after launch. As a result of the failure, the Soviets did not assign an official Soyuz designation to the flight (it should have become Soyuz 18). Instead, they termed the event “the April 5 anomaly”. In the West, this “mission” is often referred to as Soyuz 18-1, to distinguish it from the successful replacement Soyuz 18 mission flown with a

different crew a few weeks later. As the aborted flight attained a peak altitude of 119 miles (192 km) it was officially credited as a space flight in progress, becoming the highest altitude suborbital trajectory to date.

In September 1983, a second Soyuz launch was aborted seconds before release from the pad when the carrier rocket suddenly exploded. The emergency escape rocket fired and propelled the crew to a safe, if rapid recovery five minutes later. As the maximum altitude attained was just a few thousand feet and the “launch” had not taken place, this did not become an accredited space flight or official “mission”. It was an unwelcome and surprising experience. In July 1985, Shuttle mission 51F suffered a main engine failure which threatened its ascent to orbit. Fortunately, sufficient velocity and altitude had been attained at the time of the failure and the loss of the engine could be compensated by those remaining. Abort-To-Orbit (ATO) mode was followed, resulting in a lower-than-planned Earth orbit which was modified over the next few days.

The question of when a space flight is not credited as a flight into space, but is instead deemed a mission in progress, was demonstrated tragically in January 1986 with the STS-51L mission and the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew of seven. The vehicle exploded just 73 seconds after leaving the pad at an altitude of 14,020 m (45,997 ft.), far below the recognized altitude to be termed a true space flight. However, in respect to the lost crew, NASA credited them post­humously with a mission duration of 1 minute 13 seconds to the point of the disaster and officially termed the ill-fated flight a “space mission in progress”.

This same classification was attributed to the STS-107 mission in February 2003, when that vehicle and its crew of seven were lost during a high-altitude breakup just 16 minutes from the planned landing in Florida. Again as a mark of respect to the crew, they were credited a mission duration to the point of loss of signal. Unlike STS-51L, they had completed a 16-day flight and were coming home from orbit when disaster struck. In most records of space flight missions, the flights of Soyuz 18-1 and STS-51L tend to be listed as attempted orbital mis­sions which fell short of that goal during flight. Had all gone well, they would have both attained sufficient velocity to have been accredited as true orbital space flights.

In contrast, the Soviet program was not going well. All their effort for manned operations was now diverted to creating a space station. The objectives of this program were, typically, not forthcoming from the secretive Soviets, and would not be for some years. However, it was subsequently revealed by Soviet space watchers that there would be two distinctly separate space station programs, either civilian and scientific in nature or more military in intent, which would both be run under one heading, called “Salyut” to help mask the clandestine nature of the military stations.

In April 1971, as part of the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Gagarin flight, the first Salyut was launched. Tragically, the first man in space had not lived to see the tribute, having been killed in a plane crash in March 1968 at the age of 34. He had never had the opportunity to return to orbit. The first Salyut was a compromise between the DOS scientific stations (identified later as “civilian” in the West) planned by OKB-1 and the Almaz (“Diamond”) military – focused stations designed by OKB-52. It was plagued by difficulties from the start. The first crew (Soyuz 10), launched a few days after the Salyut, could not complete a hard docking and returned after only two days in space. Then the second crew was grounded when one of them failed a medical, so their intended mission was flown by the backup crew. Launched as Soyuz 11, this replacement crew completed a challenging 21 days on board the station but tragically died during the recovery phase due to a faulty air equalization valve.

As a result, the Soviet manned program was grounded and a planned third visit to the Salyut canceled. It would be two years before the next Soyuz crew entered orbit to test the improvements to the ferry craft and three years before a

cosmonaut crew would enter another Salyut in orbit. During this period, the Americans completed both the Apollo program and the three Skylab program manned missions, forging ahead in both lunar and space station experiences much to the chagrin of the Soviets.

The final Apollo missions to the Moon were flown in 1972. Apollo 16 and 17 completed the J-series of scientific missions to more geologically challenging sites, maximizing the variety of samples retrieved from the six landing sites. The Apollo program was a highly successful series and, even with the Apollo 13 aborted landing, significant experience and confidence was gained in sending crews out to the Moon and from performing the first EVAs on the surface of another celestial body. Unfortunately, a number of factors contributed to the closure of the program, which prevented the Americans from expanding upon this experience and contributed to the diversion of hardware, funds, and investment elsewhere. Most notably, this was to the planned Space Shuttle program, which had been authorized in January 1972 and approved in April that year while the Apollo 16 astronauts were exploring the Moon.

Just over a decade after manned space flight had become possible, the emphasis was already changing. No longer was it a race to achieve leadership at the Moon. Now, a concerted effort to look back at Earth began to develop and with it, hopefully, the creation of economical access to and from Earth orbit, with additional emphasis on sustained and extended operations in low Earth orbit. When Apollo stopped flying to the Moon in December 1972, no one really thought it would be over 35 years before we would even consider going back there seriously with a new program, and probably over 50 years before we finally make it.

This decade also brought a new, third player into the field of manned space flight operations—the Chinese. Long thought to have keen interest in developing human space flight capability, a planned program to place Chinese citizens in space in the 1970s was abandoned due to more pressing difficulties in the country. In 1992 a new manned space flight program was authorized, and from 1999 a series of unmanned test flights of the Shenzhou vehicle finally qualified the system to put a man into space.

In October 2003, taikonaut (or yuhangyuan) Liwei Yang flew Shenzhou 5 on a 21-hour mission, certifying the vehicle for human space flight operations. Two years later, in October 2005, a trio of taikonauts flew Shenzhou 6 on a five-day manned test flight, qualifying the vehicle for more extensive operations. It would be almost three years later, in September 2008, before the next Shenzhou crew entered orbit. This was also a three-man mission, but much shorter, with the specific objective of performing the first Chinese EVA. This was accomplished by mission commander Zhai Zhigang on September 27, 2008. All of these missions were explained by the Chinese authorities as planned steps toward the creation of a small space research laboratory, leading to larger space stations and eventually to Chinese manned expeditions to the Moon.

The first decade of the 21st century would put in place the infrastructure to expand the capabilities of the U. S., Russia, and the other partners in the ISS program, and to support the future direction that would be pursued over the coming two decades. The emergence of China added a whole new element to human space exploration and the appearance of their first space laboratory signals their intention to create a permanent presence in space, possibly far beyond low Earth orbit.

On the morning of April 12, 1961, a Soviet pilot named Yuri Gagarin sat strapped to an ejection seat in the cockpit of his craft awaiting the start of his next flight. As a serving air force officer there was nothing strange about that, except that the “craft” was a spacecraft, not an aircraft, and Gagarin was lying on his back, not sitting upright in the normal flying position. One other significant difference in his pending flight was that Gagarin was sitting on a rocket standing on a launchpad instead of in a military jet on the end of a runway. It was true that Gagarin was about to fly into the atmosphere once more, but not for long. Within minutes of leaving the launchpad he was passing through the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, where blue skies turn black and “air” becomes “space”, pioneering a new mode of transport, that of manned space flight.

Since that day, small steps and giant strides have been made in the exploration of space, be it by automated satellites, space probes, or crewed

D. J. Shayler and M. D. Shayler, Manned Spaceflight LogII—2006—2012, Springer Praxis Books 158, DOl 10.1007/978-1-4614-4577-7_1, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

vehicles. Each and every mission adds to the database of experience, whether successful or not. There had been arguments for and against human space explora­tion even before Gagarin left the pad. Over the decades, these have expanded to include debates on the militarization of space; on the importance of scientific objec­tives; the direction of future space efforts and how they could be financed; the drain on science and unmanned programs to fund manned activities; and whether the budget should be spent on space at all when there are so many problems here on Earth. These arguments will certainly continue for many decades to come, counter­ing the natural global evolution of the program, but on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s mission (April 2011), the time was right to take stock and review what had been achieved in human space flight, how we had arrived there, and where to go in the future.

There have been countless volumes over the previous six decades or so that have provided an exhaustive narrative of various manned space flight programs, the hardware, operations, and results. The basic records of these missions were recorded in the earlier edition of this log (Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961­2006, Tim Fumiss and David J. Shayler with Michael D. Shayler, Springer-Praxis 2007) providing both a handy reference in its own right, and a companion volume to the various titles that examined each program and mission in more detail.

Where blue skies turn black 3

In all space flights, there are three phases that are common to each mission. Though the profile, objectives, and even the hardware changes, the sequence remains the same for human missions—launch, inflight, and landing.

Launch sites

There have only been three launch sites used to send humans into orbit since 1961, one each in the Soviet Union, the United States, and China. In addition, Edwards

Air Force Base in California was the home of the X-15 program from which a series of “astro-flights” were conducted in the 1960s. Nearby Mojave Airport was the departure point for the 2004 SpaceShipOne flights. Despite plans, there were no launches of military Manned Orbiting Laboratory missions in the 1960s, nor classi­fied Shuttle missions during the 1980s, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, also known as “Slick-6”) in California.

The first launch of a manned orbital space flight, on April 12, 1961, was from Pad 1 at Site 5 at the huge Baikonur Cosmodrome, in what was Soviet Central Asia (now known as the Republic of Kazakhstan). All subsequent Soviet/Russian manned launches have taken place from the same cosmodrome, though a few have used Pad 31 at Site 6.

Similarly, all American manned space flights have begun from the extensive launch complex at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The early missions launched from Pad 5 (used for the suborbital Mercury-Redstone launches), 14 (Mercury Atlas), 19 (Gemini Titan), or 34 (Apollo Saturn IB), with the Pad A or В sites at Launch Complex 39 serving as the launch site for all Apollo Saturn V and Skylab/ASTP Saturn IB missions. The LC-39 pads were subsequently converted to launch all 135 Shuttle missions. As changes take place once more in Florida to remove Shuttle-related launch systems and install facilities for the next generation of U. S. launch vehicles, these historic pads will be used to place new American vehicles into orbit. Across the world in China, the third launch site for manned spacecraft is located in Jiuquan and is used to support the launch of Shenzhou missions.

Using redirected lunar hardware, the Skylab space station became the first (and, to date, only) American domestic space station, another example of the long, compli­cated, and troubled American space station history within both NASA and the USAF. The military-orientated Manned Orbiting Laboratory program (utilizing a variant of the NASA Gemini spacecraft for crew transport) was canceled in 1969 after six expensive years of development and only one unmanned test flight. The NASA “civilian” space station program began quietly in the early 1960s, discard­ing the various grand plans revealed in the 1950s for giant stations circling the Earth and instead focusing upon creating payloads of scientific hardware flown on adapted Apollo spacecraft. These would supplement, but not replace, the lunar effort. Preliminary studies both within NASA and at contractor level revealed that the Apollo Command and Service Module, the Lunar Module, the Saturn family of launch vehicles, and the supportive hardware had the flexibility and potential to complete far wider missions than just sending men to the Moon for short visits to set up scientific instruments, return a few boxes of Moon rock, and plant a flag.

These ideas were soon identified as Apollo Extension (or Apollo X) missions. They were an obvious continuation to the basic lunar profile missions, which

could be flown throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s or beyond. However, as the effort intensified to develop the hardware required to reach the Moon, hopefully before the Soviets, so too did the administrative and political pressure not to divert substantial funds away from the main Apollo lunar program. Any new program suggestions suffered accordingly. Indeed, there was so much focus on simply getting the men to the Moon and safely home that even the science intended to be conducted on the Moon was reduced to almost nothing for the first landing. This was of course partly because of the immense challenge in simply achieving the landing in the first place and a desire not to overcomplicate the first attempt. Any expansion of science could be deferred to later missions once the commitment to reach the Moon by 1970 (and beat the Soviets) had been achieved.

The studies continued, however, and in an attempt to mask their appearance as a “new start” the programs were restructured. In 1966, Apollo X and all its connotations were gathered under a new program branch, identified as the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) Office. The primary focus of this effort centered upon using spent Saturn launch vehicle stages fitted out in space as rudimentary space laboratories. There were other missions proposed, but the Orbital Workshop (OWS) concept was the flagship of the AAP program. The rocket stage intended

Early designs from the Apollo X studies.

for use as the station would be fueled and used during the launch. Once in orbit and empty, it would be decontaminated by the crew, who would arrive in a CSM ferry craft. This became known as the “wet” workshop design. NASA had to be careful to avoid promoting the space station program as a new start because of the possible threat to the budget allocation for the mainline Apollo effort. The
way round this was to identify the “new program” (that was not officially new) as one that was simply applying the hardware and skills of Apollo to a range of further missions beyond the original remit.

Most of these missions were expected to fly in Earth orbit in between the lunar missions. After the initial Apollo landing missions (probably four or five), AAP missions to lunar orbit would follow, creating an OWS there followed by 14-day missions to the surface, hopefully setting up a small research base and extended surface expeditions. Unfortunately, concerns over the cost of the main­line Apollo and the decline in both interest and support for going to the Moon by both politicians and the public signaled the end of extensive AAP operations.

By the end of 1969, the lunar landing by Apollo had indeed been accomplished, twice, but only one AAP space station remained on the manifest. Three manned missions were planned, but it would not become the primary focus until after the Apollo missions to the Moon were completed. By early 1970, AAP had been renamed Skylab and the “wet” workshop design had also changed. Now, the laboratory would be launched on a two-stage Saturn V, with the third stage pre-fitted out as a fully equipped “dry”, or unfueled, workshop. The three teams of astronauts were planned to fly 28, 56, and 56-day missions during 1973.

Skylab 1, the unmanned laboratory, was launched in May 1973 and was almost lost during the attempt, with one of the solar power arrays and micro­meteorite shields being ripped off by aerodynamic stress. Almost limping to orbit, the problems in cooling and powering up the station caused the first mission to be delayed to give NASA time to develop plans and hardware to recover the station to as near planned operating levels as possible. The success of the first and second crews in deploying the remaining array and installing protective solar shades saved Skylab, allowing a full three-mission program to be completed. The missions set new endurance records of 28 days, 59 days, and an impressive 84 days (both instead of the planned 56), rendering a potential 21-day fourth visiting mission unnecessary. The Skylab teams gained significant experience and gathered impor­tant results from Earth observations, solar studies, medical investigations, and a wide range of other experiments and research studies in materials processing, astronomy, and education.

Unfortunately, the fully functional backup laboratory, “Skylab B”, was not launched due to budget restrictions. Instead, the flight-ready module was sent to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. for public display. To this day, former astronauts who could have flown to and lived in the station are reluctant to visit the display, recalling lost opportunities. Other unflown Apollo Saturn hardware from the canceled lunar missions was allocated to the Johnson, Marshall, and Kennedy Space Centers as museum pieces. This was very disap­pointing, not only for those who had built the vehicles and those who had hoped to fly on them, but also for those who had negotiated the funding to pay for them under the Apollo program. Instead they remained on the ground, stark reminders of what might have been.

Following Skylab, the only remaining American mission firmly on the launch manifest was the docking mission with a Soviet Soyuz, which was designated the

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. This one-off mission occurred in the summer of 1975, when Apollo “18” rendezvoused and docked with Soyuz 19. The ensuing handshake in space between astronauts and cosmonauts as they opened the con­necting hatches for the first time featured in the headlines around the world; a demonstration of growing detente between the two superpowers both on Earth and in space.

The ASTP had evolved from talks between representatives of the American and Soviet space programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with agreements on the exchange of data on both manned and unmanned missions. In early plans, it was suggested that an American Apollo might dock with a Soviet Salyut space station crewed by Soyuz cosmonauts. This was soon dismissed as impractical by the Soviets, since Salyut did not then have two docking ports. What was not revealed at the time was that a second-generation Salyut station was in develop­ment which did indeed feature two docking ports, a design which would not be revealed until later in the decade. Following the ASTP mission, talks continued for some years and included the possibility of docking a Shuttle orbiter to one of these, now revealed, second-generation Salyuts. Unfortunately, the political climate worsened, so talks on joint manned missions were abandoned for over a decade.