What is Offices In Space – ISS?
At the end of Marvel Studios Captain Marvel, we see our favorite Nick Fury (though he prefers to be called just Fury) in a space station known as Offices In Space with a host of Kree, alien fugitives hiding away in space. Turns out such is no longer impossible. By that, I mean the space station part, not the hanging out with aliens part.
On 14th May 1973, Skylab, the first and only space station (Offices In Space) owned exclusively by the United States of America, was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida. As with most pioneer-activities, this one too had its fair share of catastrophe.
The micro-meteoroid shield (the shield that protects space crafts irrespective of whether they are manned from small meteoroids) broke off, along with a solar panel. To complicate things, debris from the shield got caught on the other solar panel. Want to know how the story ends? Just come along.
HOW DID THE PROJECT START? History of the Offices In Space- ISS
The 1950’s was a period where everyone from scientist to storyteller itched to see a space station (Offices In Space) come to reality. One of those scientists was Wernher von Braun, a German-American rocket engineer who later became the head of the Development Operations Division at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
He published several papers on its possibility in Collier’s magazine and later went on to propose Project Horizon to the US Army. Basically, the project was focused on taking men to the moon, though it also had details of an orbiting laboratory built out of Horizon’s upper stage.
The project never made it past the feasibility phase as President Dwight Eisenhower scrapped it in favour of the development of the young civilian space agency, NASA.
In 1963, though, ideas from Project Horizon were revisited when the Department of Defense (DoD) decided to work with NASA on building a space station (Offices In Space). The agreement didn’t really last long since the DoD wanted it completely militarized.
The DoD ended up competing for funds with NASA for their Manned Operations Laboratory, MOL, which was still a space station, though focused on surveying and taking pictures of Earth.
Unfortunately for the DoD, the project was cancelled in June 1969. Several other space projects were also cancelled within the decade between the plan for a space station (Offices In Space) and its actual completion.
Needless to say, NASA’s space station project survived the US’ budget-shrinking season and went into development. It received much of the resources meant for the cancelled projects like rockets.
Compared to a host of other space-going project, habitability was really considered this time such that the astronauts had quite the accomodation with an exotic glass view of Earth, small private rooms, showers and food that didn’t leave them feeling like lab rats.
Finally, today in 1973, ten years after the project conception, Skylab was launched without any human in it- Skylab 1
WHAT NEXT AFTER THE LAUNCH OF SKYLAB – Offices In Space?
What happens when you build a house? You move in! Skylab 2, 3 and 4 were crewed missions that sent 3 astronauts each to man the space station.
Since Skylab 1 had suffered great losses, barely 11 days later, the Skylab 2 team, including Astronauts Pete Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz, were sent on a repair mission.
They mounted a large sunshade to replace the Micrometeoroid shield (PS. Both underlined words largely mean the same thing) and carried out other repairs via two spacewalks. The trio spent 28 days in Skylab, completing 404 orbits before returning.
Shortly after, on June 28, the Skylab 3 team, including Alan L. Bean, Owen K. Garriott and Jack R. Lousma, was deployed. They stayed for 60 days, completing 858 orbits around the Earth before returning.
Fun fact, though: these 3 men left dummies wearing their uniforms behind. Sometimes, I wonder if it was done deliberately to scare the next set of astronauts. If that’s so, then I’m sure it must have worked.
The last mission, Skylab 4, included Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William R. Pogue and was launched on November 16 of the same year. After the horror of finding strange people that turned out to be dummies already onboard the station, they also had to deal with Pogue’s space sickness. Ultimately, their mission was successful and they returned 84 days and 1214 revolutions later.
Those were the only missions carried out on Skylab.
WHAT’S UP WITH SKYLAB – Offices In Space NOW?
Skylab is in the Indian Ocean… At least, its debris is.
Due to atmospheric drag, it suffered orbital disintegration, a situation where the distance of orbital between two bodies gradually decreases till they collide with each other. Due to delay to reboost the station, on the 19th of July 1979, Skylab fell through Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated, the debris of which fell into the Indian ocean.
Despite its short life, Skylab was a very rewarding project. According to a Wikipedia article:
“Skylab logged about 2,000 hours of scientific and medical experiments, 127,000 frames of film of the Sun and 46,000 of Earth. Solar experiments included photographs of eight solar flares, and produced valuable results that scientists stated would have been impossible to obtain with uncrewed spacecraft. The existence of the Sun’s coronal holes was confirmed because of these efforts. Many of the experiments conducted investigated the astronauts’ adaptation to extended periods of microgravity.”
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Wikipedia (Skylab) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SPACE STATIONS – Offices In Space?
Endless possibilities! Skylab started as a storyline that entertained people and a proposal that was thrown away. Now, its reality tells us that all mankind has to do is to imagine anything.
It’s only a matter of time, we’ll soon be having resorts right at the borders of our planet’s atmosphere. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
