Word: skylab
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Conrad undocked and maneuvered Apollo to Skylab. Wearing a bulky space suit, Weitz leaned out of Apollo's hatch (while Kerwin held onto his knee to keep him from drifting out into space) and attempted to pull the jammed panel loose with a long-handled tool resembling a boat hook. The panel would not budge. After an hour of pushing, shoving and tugging-interspersed with streams of obscenities clearly audible to millions-the task seemed hopeless. "I hate to say it," said the exasperated Weitz, "but we ain't going to do it with the tools...
That judgment was a severe blow to the prospects for a full Skylab mission...
Without the electrical power from the inoperative panel, Skylab would have to depend on its windmill solar panels and on Apollo's fuel cells, which would be depleted in about three weeks. That meant that many of Skylab's planned experiments would have to be curtailed...
...worst was still to come. When the disappointed astronauts moved Apollo back to the nose of Skylab to dock for a rest period, another glitch developed: Apollo's docking mechanism, which had worked the first time, suddenly balked. Several times Conrad bumped Apollo's nose into Skylab's docking adapter; each time, Apollo's docking mechanism failed to engage...
Determined to avoid aborting the entire mission, the astronauts suited up again, depressurized their cabin, removed the probe assembly and attempted to make repairs. After two hours of effort they finally managed to dock successfully. On Saturday, they were to try to enter Skylab and attempt to put a sun screen over the orbital workshop's exposed skin...