Word: skylab
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After an indifferent start, the Skylab mission was also sailing smoothly. The astronauts had recovered from a bout of space sickness and were learning to live with a balky gyroscope, one of the three essential for maneuvering and maintaining the stability of the ship. One gyro had already broken down, and failure of a second might force curtailment of the mission. But as long as it continued to function, the astronauts had a steady platform in the sky; they made good use of it by photographing everything from simmering volcanoes on earth to giant storms...
Merely by getting into orbit, the cosmonauts helped set a record of sorts: for the first time in history U.S. and Soviet crews were in space at the same time. About 100 miles higher than the smaller Russian ship, Skylab's three astronauts were beginning their second month of a scheduled 84-day flight. Radioed Skylab's skipper, Gerald Carr...
...time for elaborate preparation. Kohoutek may well be the most intensely scrutinized celestial object in the history of astronomy; it will be tracked and studied by thousands of scientists and an incredible array of instruments ranging from the 200-in. telescope on Mount Palomar to the sophisticated devices aboard Skylab and other spacecraft...
After the Jupiter flyby, astronomers -including the Skylab astronauts -turned their attention back to Kohoutek. "She's still coming at us," reported Skylab Commander Gerald Carr, noting that the fuzzy blob was getting bigger all the time. In the weeks ahead, the Skylab crew will keep Kohoutek under virtually constant watch in order to spot any structural changes in the comet as quickly as possible. The astronauts will also lug some of their cameras outside to get the best possible pictures during three space walks-on Christmas Day just before the comet ducks behind...
...Luck. Skylab's presence in orbit during the comet's passage is an incredible bit of luck. If the comet had arrived a month or so later, or Skylab had been launched only slightly earlier, the space station would not have been available for the important observations. Says Astronaut-Scientist Karl Henize: "All through the space program, we've been looking for a Rosetta stone-what is the primordial material out of which the solar system is made? We looked for it on the moon and we didn't find it; we found other things instead...