This is the last of the Space Center Houston images for now. During the camp, we sleep amongst the exhibits and this year we were assigned space on the floor of the Spaceship Gallery which is home to a bunch of hardware including this mock-up of the Skylab interior.
For the benefit of the youngsters reading this, Skylab was the first US space station. It launched on a Saturn V rocket on May 14th, 1973 and was occupied by various crews for a total of 171 days. It deorbited in 1979 with most of it burning up or landing in the Indian Ocean and the Western Australian outback.
[…] Another part that was unexpectedly awesome was the Skylab training module, where astronauts would practice being in space before getting sent to Skylab. Skylab was a mini space station that was put into orbit in the 70s that was basically made out of leftover Saturn V rockets that were never going to make it to the moon after budget cuts. NASA re-purposed one of the final-stage fuel sections in the rocket as extra living space, put it in orbit around the Earth, and sent astronauts to live in it for a while. I had no idea this phase of the space program ever existed (like I said, I learned a lot), so to round the corner and see this full-sized, completely set up SPACE HOUSE that I could walk through was really awesome. Because it’s designed for space, the sleeping quarters were on the ceiling, the kitchen was on the side, and astronauts could “run” around the perimeter if they got some momentum going. Science! Interior of Skylab living space at Space Center Houston. Photo by Dave Wilson Photography. […]