How
to Colonize an Asteroid
How
to Colonize an Asteroid
Skylab was NASA's first attempt at a manned space station. It was designed to study the effects of long term exposure to the environment of space on the human body, and to perform many other scientific experiments which could only be carried out in the microgravity of earth's orbit.
Skylab was launched
on May 14, 1973, on a Saturn V rocket. During
the launch, a meteoroid shield was torn loose and damaged the solar panels,
but the first crew was able to rig up a fix, and the missions continued.
Much was learned on the four missions to skylab. Unfortunately, Skylab's
orbit decayed and it crashed into the Indian Ocean and Australia on July
11, 1979. Check out the link to NASA for more information and images. We
will refer back to some of Skylab's data in other sections of this
web.
