Skylab: 1st Floor (Trash / Shower / Rotating Chair / LBNP / Bike / Dosimeter) A Blender Animation
Skylab was America's first space station. Shortly after launch the micrometeoroid shield ripped off exposing the shiny gold layer underneath. As the shield tore away, one of the main solar arrays partially deployed. During staging, a retrorocket exhaust hit the partially deployed arrays completely ripping it off the spacecraft. The Orbital Workshop (OWS) had 2 floors. This video focuses on the first floor.
634: The OWS was constructed from a modified S-IVB stage whose original use was to accelerate the Apollo Command and Lunar Module to the Moon. The liquid oxygen tank was converted into the Skylab Trash container while the fuel tank was converted into the living space. Trash could be expelled into the the lox tank via the Panel 634 airlock.
Shower: The shower is a round white tube that connects to a ring on the ceiling after you get in it. While it worked, it took a lot of time to vacuum out all of the water drops when complete. Note that ISS does not have a shower. ISS crews just take sponge baths.
Rotating Chair (M131 experiment): Human vestibular function. On earth, your vestibular function tells your body what position your head is in and allows for coordination of eyeball movement and equilibrium. In zero G, this system gets messed up and about 50% of astronauts feel ill for their first several days as they adapt to zero G. The M131 tests were run on earth and space to see if there was any difference. After space adaptation the M131 experiments showed that the astronauts were insusceptible to motion sickness.
Lower Body Negative Pressure (LBNP) (M092): This is the orange tube laying on its side. This device measured the cardio-vascular deconditioning during flight.
Bike (ergometer/M171): Evaluation of the ergometer as exercise for long duration missions, and also used to determine extended spaceflight food and oxygen supplies.
Dosimeter: There were 5 passive and 1 active dosimeters onboard located at various locations of heavy, intermediate, and light shielding. The active dosimeter was primarily used to measure the Van Allen Belt radiation effects on the crew while in the South Atlantic Anomaly and the cosmic radiation effects on the crew while in the northern most geomagnetic latitudes of the orbital path.
Skylab 1: The Workshop
-Launch: May 14, 1973
-Deorbit: July 11, 1979
-Mass: 168,750 lbs without Apollo CSM
-Inclination: 50 deg
-Altitude: about 270 miles
Skylab 2 (crew mission 1)
-Crew: Pete Conrad (Apollo 12), Joe Kerwin, Paul Weitz
-Launch Date (original): May 15, 1973
-Launch Date (actual): May 25, 1973. Delayed to work out repair procedures and to build/develop special tools.
-Mission Days: 28
Skylab 3 (crew mission 2)
-Crew: Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Owen Garriott, Jack Lousma
-Launch Date: July 28, 1973
-Mission Days: 60
Skylab 4 (crew mission 3)
-Crew: Pete Conrad (Apollo 12), Gerald Carr, Ed Gibson, William Pogue
-Launch Date: Nov 16, 1973
-Mission Days: 84