Episode 437 === [00:00:00] Mission Control- CAPCOM: For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. [00:00:08] John Mulnix: This is the Space Shot, episode 437, A Skylab 50th Extravaganza. Hey everyone, I'm John Mulnix and welcome to the Space Shot. In today's episode, we've got three incredible guests joining us for a discussion on Skylab's 50th anniversary. [00:00:26] John Mulnix: Before we get to that though, I've got some news on a book prize slash movie slash jewelry giveaway that I'm doing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Skylab from now until the Splashdown of Skylab three on September 25th. Make sure you sign up for the space shot Substack. Say that 10 times fast. The link is in the show notes for a chance to win some cool prizes, I'll be drawing a name slash email subscriber every week from the launch of Skylab three until the end of September. [00:00:57] John Mulnix: The final two weeks, we'll have some awesome [00:01:00] prizes, like a signed copy of Homesteading Space, the Skylab story, which I think is probably the fifth copy of that book that I've bought at this point. Um, plus a Blu-ray of searching for Skylab, which is an amazing documentary that you'll hear more about here in this episode. [00:01:15] John Mulnix: Plus some fun space themed coffee from a little coffee shop in Colorado. And I'll also be giving away some cool space themed jewelry and stickers, which you can see more of@starlightandgleam.com. The first giveaway winner will be announced on July 28th, which is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Skylab three. [00:01:34] John Mulnix: So make sure you sign up for the Substack today. Now here's a super fun conversation that I had with Emily Carney, David Hit, and Dwight Steven Benecke. I do have a correction to make and I feel bad that I have to, uh, I normally have everyone introduce themselves, uh, before we start doing a podcast. And I forgot to this time, um, Dwight's last name is actually Polish, so it's closer to, and I hope I [00:02:00] don't butcher this, Steven-Boniecki. [00:02:02] John Mulnix: Um, I'll have Dwight on again in the future so we can chat about the making of the documentary. Um, searching for Skylab and also, um, hi and his background and what he does in the community at large. Um. Everybody was just awesome to talk to for this episode. I really, really had a good time. Um, so apologies to Dwight for messing that up. [00:02:22] John Mulnix: I'm usually better about it 'cause people always try to add extra Ls or Ns or i's to my last name. Um, lastly the audio clip that you're about to hear is the prank that was played during Skylab three. Owen Garriott's wife Helen, recorded this bit that you're about to hear and it's what we mention later on in the episode. [00:02:44] Helen Garriott: Hello Houston, this is Skylab. Are you reading me down there? [00:02:54] Helen Garriott: Hello? Houston, are you reading Skylab? [00:02:59] Mission Control- CAPCOM: Uh, [00:03:00] Skylab. This is Houston. Uh, I heard you all right, but uh, I had a little difficulty recognizing your voice. Who we got on the line here? [00:03:06] Helen Garriott: Oh, Houston Roger. Well, I haven't talked with you for a while. Isn't that you down there, Bob? This is Helen here in Skylab. The boys hadn't had a home cooked meal in so long. [00:03:18] Helen Garriott: I thought I'd just bring one up over, [00:03:23] Mission Control- CAPCOM: uh, Roger Skylab. I, I think somebody's gotta pull, be pulling my leg, Helen, is that, uh, is that really you? Where are you? [00:03:29] Helen Garriott: Yeah, Bob, just a few ago we were looking down on the forest fires in California. You know, the smoke shirt does cover a lot of territory and Oh, Bob, the sunrises are just beautiful. [00:03:45] Helen Garriott: Uh oh. Uh oh. I have to cut off now. I see the boys are floating up toward the command module and I'm not supposed to be talking to you. See you later, Bob. Bye-bye.[00:04:00] [00:04:02] Mission Control- CAPCOM: Uh, Skylab, uh, Houston, uh, we have you scheduled to inhibit, uh, tax here. A little problem we had earlier today in the momentum not being quite an nominal configuration, we'd like to hold up on that for a while. [00:04:13] John Mulnix: Now here's the chat with Emily, David, Dwight, and myself. Enjoy. So today I am joined by, uh, three of my favorite space historians and people here. [00:04:25] John Mulnix: Um, we've got Emily Carney, David Hit, and Dwight Steven Benecke. Did I say that right? You did pretty good. I should, I should have checked before I like started, but, okay. It's all good. It's all good. Okay. Um, so today we're gonna be talking and focusing on the second man Skylab mission, Skylab three, which launched on, uh, July 28th, 1973. [00:04:52] John Mulnix: Um, this was a really interesting mission. Uh, Alan Bean, Jack Lama and Owen Garriott were the second crew on the station. [00:05:00] Um, and let's just kind of start it off with the launch being moved up. So that was kind of an anomaly in the space flight world. Usually things get pushed back. [00:05:10] David Hitt: My, my memory of that mission starts with a thruster floating by the window. [00:05:14] David Hitt: So, uh, I'm, I'm useless Before that [00:05:18] John Mulnix: we can, we can start with that. I mean, like, 'cause launching early, I mean like that just kind of happened. Um, but the thruster floating by the window is a very, uh, interesting point to kind of jump in with the crew, I think. Yeah. [00:05:31] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Yeah, they had a, they had a pretty much a textbook launch. [00:05:34] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It was a bit, uh, cloudy, um, similar to the first, uh, when, when the space station itself launched. You didn't see it for that much longer after it left the, uh, launch, uh, cleared the tower. And, um, then while there were, uh, uh, achieving orbit suddenly, uh, something floats by the window. Not something you want to see. [00:05:56] David Hitt: And [00:05:56] David Hitt: that's, no, that's, that's bad. Like, that's, yeah. I think it, [00:06:00] I think it was Jack Lama who was like, Hey, we got a thruster floating by the window. And, and they were like, what? Like, that's not good. And I think it turned out it was ice from the, it was ice from the thruster, but it looked like a thruster floating by, which is, it's kind of funny. [00:06:18] David Hitt: But [00:06:19] David Hitt: the, the good news was it wasn't actually a thruster, the bad news was it really didn't matter that it wasn't a thruster 'cause in terms of, uh. The, the, the implications for the mission, it really wasn't that much difference. They, uh, the ice had frozen up, uh, inside the thruster had, uh, had floated out. [00:06:37] David Hitt: They knew that they had a leak. And, uh, and having a leak in your thruster really isn't, it really isn't any better than not having the thruster there at all. So they, uh, they had to shut down that, uh, that quad and had to, uh, had to in space. Uh, I was gonna say, figure out how did they, they had trained for this. [00:06:54] David Hitt: I mean, so they had, you know, some, some, uh, you know, ground knowledge of what this is like. [00:07:00] Uh, not exactly exactly the same as, um, doing it in space for the, doing the real thing, but, so piloting in a, uh, piloting a, uh, an Apollo CSM with, uh, with one quad shutdown. [00:07:12] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Yes, but it didn't end there. It didn't end there. [00:07:15] John Mulnix: But, but wait, there's more. [00:07:18] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: After they docked David, Emily, it was about what, A week after they do. Several days. At least after they docked. Well, so before [00:07:26] David Hitt: we, before we dock 'em though, 'cause that was, uh, I, I loved hearing, uh, Owen telling this story, right? Yes. So, so you can fly. It turns out, if you're ever in this situation and you need to fly in Apollo CSM with, uh, with one of the quads shut down, uh, it's, it's perfectly doable. [00:07:42] David Hitt: You can do it. It's just the, the vehicle handles a a little bit differently. 'cause uh, you know, anything that you put into the controls, you get what you ask for. But then you also get a little something that you didn't ask for. And so there's a lot of, uh, compensating for, uh, you know, you're, you're trying to go up and you're going up, but, but also a little bit [00:08:00] faster. [00:08:00] David Hitt: You're, or you're, uh, you know, you're turning left, but also getting a bit of y'all or what have you. And, uh, and so they're coming up on Skylab. And, uh, and again, you gotta keep in mind this is, uh, this is 50 years ago, right? So, uh, so the technology then, not what it is today. They don't have a, uh, a range rate gauge, um, gauge on the, uh, on the spacecraft. [00:08:23] David Hitt: They can see how far they are from Skylab, um, but they don't know exactly how quick they're, uh, they're coming up on the thing. And so Owen is sitting in the, uh, in the, in the command module, and he sees Skylab coming up and he's, uh, you know, this, this, this thing's coming up a little bit faster than, uh, than it should have. [00:08:40] David Hitt: And, uh, so he's got his, uh, he's got his watch and he is got his, his pocket calculator, and, uh, and he can see the range to Skylab. And so he's manually, as they're approaching, calculating how fast they're, uh, they're coming up on this thing, and then he's telling Alan Bean who's, uh, who's flying to spacecraft. [00:08:58] David Hitt: You know, we're, we're, [00:09:00] we're coming up kind of fast and Alan's, oh no, we're good. We're fine. I feel good about this. And, and they keep closing in. And, uh, and, uh, you know, and Owen's still sitting there with his, uh, with his calculator, punching in the numbers and, you know, and, and getting concerned and, uh, and telling how, you know, oh, no, no, really? [00:09:17] David Hitt: You, you need to slow down. You're coming up with this thing too fast. And I was, no, no, no, no. I got it. And so Owen's sitting there and, and he's punching in the numbers and he is checking the range, and he, he's doing the calculations, looking at his watch, and, uh, and finally he's like, no, we're, we're going in too fast. [00:09:33] David Hitt: Doesn't bother telling Bean anymore. Um, he gets out of his seat and gets down behind the couches and, uh, and Al Bean says, why never seen him do that before? So, uh, so I should probably take this seriously, start slowing down. And, uh, and they come in and, and, you know, and make a, uh, make a, you know, a perfectly fine docking. [00:09:57] David Hitt: But, uh, but Owen was telling me this story, and then when I [00:10:00] was working on bold Day Rise, he's telling the story of STS nine coming in at the end of the mission with the, uh, with the space shuttle, you know, on fire, the computers on fire, as as, as they're coming in and, uh, and landing the spacecraft. You know, John Young, bringing the thing home safely, uh, landing the shuttle on fire. [00:10:17] David Hitt: They get out, they turn back, they, uh, they look at the spacecraft. Owen says, uh huh I've never seen it do that before. Um, so if you ever hear an astronaut say, I've never seen it do that before, that's the, uh, that's fairly the thing these stories have in common. Be worried, be worried. Like that's, that's probably an off nominal situation. [00:10:40] John Mulnix: Oh my gosh, that's, that's one of my favorite stories in the book. Um, I was listening to the audio book version of it when I was driving this last week in all places, Enid, Oklahoma were one of my stores is, so I was listening to that actually as I was driving out of Enid the other day. So that was pretty, uh, fortuitous timing. [00:10:58] John Mulnix: Um, so yeah, now, now that [00:11:00] the crew's docked. Things. Dwight, you were starting to talk about things getting a little weird. [00:11:05] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It it, it doesn't, it doesn't end there. Alan Bean, who's well known as being the best friend of TV cameras, uh, they turned the camera on as they're approaching Skylab. And what does the camera decide to do? [00:11:16] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: The, the wheel, the color wheel that was sending the sequential red, blue, green colors that were then composited on the ground to make color television besides to jam and block, uh, one third of the screen. Right. And if I remember correctly, Alan Bean used exactly the same technique. He tried on the moon. [00:11:32] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: He got a hammer and whacked it, but it didn't work. So they had this, uh, like a black and white feed with half. It looks like basically you're shooting out the window on the bit of the window is blocking the, uh, the view. But they, uh, Alan Bean and cameras, and of course he was, uh, knocked on the head by the dislodging 16 millimeter camera when Apollo, uh, splashed down. [00:11:53] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: So Alan Bean and camera, I, I dunno, I wonder where that camera is on [00:11:58] John Mulnix: display. [00:12:00] That would be a funny thing to ask Shannon. Next time I'm at the Cosmosphere, if they have that, that 16 millimeter camera. Just look for the one with the covered in blood. Oh my goodness. Oh man. So they, they get docked eventually. [00:12:15] John Mulnix: Technical malfunctions aside. Um, and then living and working in Skylab. They're the second crew to do that. What are some of your guys' favorite stories from that mission? And we can start at the beginning, the end of the mission. You want to jump in wherever? Um, yeah. Just share some of your favorites. Well, [00:12:34] David Hitt: I think, I think Dwight was about us in the, uh, about the weather. [00:12:38] David Hitt: Um. About a week into the mission. So why don't you, uh, let pick up there? [00:12:43] John Mulnix: Yes, that's right. [00:12:45] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: About we, several days after they, they, uh, they dock. Then suddenly all the master alarms trigger, uh, with a propellant leak warning, uh, again from the, the, uh, CSM. And so Alan Bean rushes into the, the command service module trying to figure [00:13:00] out what's going on here. [00:13:00] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And that's when they realized there's some serious, uh, problems happening with the RCS thrusters because, um, Jack was, uh, telling us the story where he's sitting in front of the panel and just saying, I couldn't ignore any of those alarms. Um. And that's when they, they, they figured out, uh, that there was some serious trouble with the RCS. [00:13:22] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And if I remember correctly, they organized a conference with, uh, advising them about rescue mission, which is then a story itself, um, unto itself, uh, with regards to, to the Second man Skylab crew, because they were in a situation where a consideration was given to rescuing them because they couldn't have flown, or they didn't, they weren't sure if they could fly the command module back down to Earth because of the, the thruster problems. [00:13:52] John Mulnix: Again, not a situation you want to be in on a spacecraft. So we're, I'm losing count of how many we've had already for the [00:14:00] second flight. [00:14:01] Emily Carney: Well, this was actually a, a good situation. So though for, uh, Vance and, uh, Don Lin, because it looked like they were gonna get real close to going to space and you know, they'd been waiting like God for eight years or so to go to space because they, um, yeah, they were in the 1966 astronaut class. [00:14:20] Emily Carney: So, um, yeah, they went in the simulator and, you know, started working and stuff. And then, um, to make a long story short, they found out you could act actually reenter with a lot of thrusters out. So they kinda worked their way out of a job. Um, unfortunately they did so well that they proved that they did not need the job. [00:14:43] Emily Carney: So unfortunately, uh, they were stuck on earth. But, um, I think for brand though, um, he was already, I believe he was already. Selected for Apollo. So I use, so I mean, he was already, he was going to go to space in a, in about a two [00:15:00] years, or, yeah, around two years from that point. So it does have a sort of a silver lining. [00:15:05] Emily Carney: Lin of course, waited for God, 12 more years or something. Something crazy. [00:15:11] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Yeah. I've got, I've got footage of him that the BBC filmed during Apollo where he's talking about, you know, when he hopes the fly, I'm thinking, wow, he had the weight quite a long time, I think. Uh, [00:15:23] Emily Carney: yeah, [00:15:24] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: like Bruce mcc [00:15:26] David Hitt: Yeah. Total of 19 years. [00:15:29] David Hitt: He was in the Corps before his wife. Yeah. [00:15:33] Emily Carney: But, um, yeah, so essentially they did such a great job that they, they proved that they didn't need the job, you know, sort of, so they ended up staying on, on Earth, unfortunately. And I think the, um, I think the, the, the. Uh, rescue vehicle. I, I, I could be wrong, but I wanna say the rescue vehicle is on display at the Saturn five center at Kennedy Space Center. [00:15:58] Emily Carney: So if you go to [00:16:00] Kennedy Space Center and you go in the Saturn five center, um, if you're by the tail, the, the, the party end of the, uh, Saturn five that has all the nice engines, the FI believe the F1 engines, if you look like to your, uh, right, you should see the rescue vehicle. So, and it, it, it's, you can like walk right up to it and look at it and stuff. [00:16:24] Emily Carney: I'm sure it's not in the same configuration as it was back then. They probably pulled out a lot of, of the good stuff in there, but you can actually view it. So, um, and it's never been used. And of course, the same place has a, has a, uh, has a, uh, seasoned, uh, command module as well, has Apollo 14, if you wanna look at that. [00:16:45] Emily Carney: So it's got two of. Two, uh, command modules in slightly different configurations. So, but yeah, that's kind of a neat story. The Skylab rescue story, I always thought, I always loved it. 'cause I read, um, Vance Brand has actually a, a book and it's called [00:17:00] Flying Higher and Faster. It's, it's like his autobiography and I read it and some of the, he, he's very dry. [00:17:06] Emily Carney: Like, he, he has a very dry sense of humor. He's very, uh, what's the word? Restrained. Uh, he's, you know, in real life he's very, if you actually meet him, he's very sort of like quiet, you know. But he gets in some good digs though. You just have to sort of wait for him. He gets in some funny jokes and that whole book is like, yeah, we, you know, I, I was getting excited. [00:17:29] Emily Carney: I, you know, I thought, man, I might go to space this time. And of course it didn't happen. So. Yeah. 'cause he'd been on a bunch of backup crews by that time. He's ready to go. It's a good read. If he. Go read it. But yeah, it's just funny. So yeah, it turns out they didn't need the rescue vehicle after all, but it was, it's kind of a neat aside in the Skylab story that it could have been something that it kind of, I, it would've been cool because it would've had five people on it, which is [00:18:00] nuts. [00:18:00] Emily Carney: That's a lot of people. And Yeah. Um, if you've seen inside of the command module, it's not that big. So that would've no been kind of a sporty ride back. So, yeah. [00:18:12] David Hitt: So they, they, uh, because yeah, 'cause you've got, you know, you've got three seats in Apollo command module, you've gotta add two more seats to the thing. [00:18:21] David Hitt: There's not a whole lot of room. So, uh, so how do you do this? Well, the, uh, you know, the three seats are sort of suspended up from the floor of the spacecraft and they've got shock absorbers. And, uh, so the plan was you're gonna put the additional seats by adding a second row so that people are sitting underneath the, uh, the, the, the primary seats. [00:18:42] David Hitt: Well, like I said, they've got, uh, they've got shock absorbers in these things so that the, uh, the, the, the couches would stroke. So if you came in, you know, if you came in, um, if they had to land on land for some reason instead of a water landing, it would've been a harder impact. Um, the Apollo command modules were designed for the seats to give [00:19:00] and, and they just kind of collapsed back towards the back of the vehicle in the event of a, uh, of a land landing. [00:19:06] David Hitt: Well, okay, so now we're putting people in that area, um, underneath the, uh, the couches where they, where they collapse down. Um, so, so what, what, so what does that mean? And, uh, the answer was, you know, so long as we land in water, we don't see a problem. Uh, so what if we don't land in water? And, uh, and the answer was. [00:19:34] David Hitt: Yeah, that probably won't happen. Um, so, you know, they were flying with, they, they were going to be flying had they flown the thing with a, uh, with a little bit of knowledge of, you know, there, there, there is a scenario, not a likely scenario, but a scenario that, uh, that maybe gets a little unpleasant, but [00:19:51] John Mulnix: yeah. [00:19:51] John Mulnix: Worse than somebody, you know, reclining their airliner seat all the way back with nowhere to go. You know it. Yes. I take that over the, the couch stroking on [00:20:00] Apollo any day. [00:20:02] David Hitt: Like, uh, like Emily said, the way it played out was, uh, you know, it was kind of unintentionally, borderline cruel that they put 'em in the simulator and made them first prove that they could fly to space. [00:20:13] David Hitt: What a rescue mission work. That was task one. They put 'em into simulator. They make them prove, yes, it would work great. We can fly a rescue mission. We're, we're going to space. Okay. Before you go to space though, we're gonna put you back in the simulator. We've got one more job for you. And that's proof that we don't need you to go to space again. [00:20:30] David Hitt: Like Emily said, they, they do such a great job. They work themselves out of a flight to space. Um, talked to, uh, I talked to both of them individually and I loved this 'cause, uh, this was before Vance's bra, uh, book came out. Um, talked to 'em both individually, asked both of them, you know, that, that, that had to have been like an emotional rollercoaster. [00:20:49] David Hitt: I mean, what were you feeling at the end of that? Were you, were you kind of, you know, disappointed to have, to have succeeded in the second task? And, and both of them, because they're astronauts and [00:21:00] because they're astronauts from the sixties, both of them very stoically, you know, well, I understood that that was what needed to be done. [00:21:07] David Hitt: And uh, you know, and I was just proud to have been able to serve. But I think the other guy was disappointed. [00:21:11] John Mulnix: Uh, I always blame blame it on the other guy. Yeah, [00:21:15] Emily Carney: that's funny. [00:21:17] David Hitt: So, yeah. [00:21:19] Emily Carney: Yeah. It is sad, man. Vance could have been the Vance, could have been the guy in the shower who's been using every, every Skylab textbook, every, every picture. [00:21:29] Emily Carney: Skylab since like 19, mid 1973. It could have been him. It couldn't, it may, it might have not been Jack after all. So who knows, who knows how history would've gone if, if this had happened. Right. [00:21:42] David Hitt: They really, you know, for all mankind should, uh, should hire us to do a spinoff movie of, uh, [00:21:49] Emily Carney: man, like a [00:21:51] John Mulnix: oh [00:21:51] Emily Carney: but it would be like a sitcom though. It wouldn't be like a dramatic like, kind of like Seinfeld except like, [00:22:00] and then like Vance and fill up like, Hey, we're here to rescue y'all. It's like that. Uh, with [00:22:07] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: space. With space, yeah. [00:22:13] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I must, there's one thing I must say. It's a good thing the csm, because I've got a little friend here, he's saying about me, uh, that they did manage to stay up in Skylab, uh, for SL three longer because they did the student experiments. And my favorite part of all the Skylab three stuff is this fellow, [00:22:34] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: they had two spiders up there, Anita and Arabella. And there, there were, I think 20 David, you might know Emily. Uh, 26, 25 student experiments. That sounds about right. Oh God. [00:22:46] Emily Carney: Uh, that sounds about right. Yeah, because I'm trying to think of experiments total, but that's way, way more. Yeah. I think they had 25 or 26. [00:22:56] Emily Carney: I think in total they had God. Like over 300 or [00:23:00] something. Something insane. Yeah. That's for [00:23:02] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: each, the whole program that when you read what these, these kids did, you know, it's, it's amazing to think they're all grandparents now, right? Back then they were like 15, 16, now they're in their late sixties, uh, if not seventies. [00:23:19] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, and, uh, no late sixties. Um, the, the, of all the student experiments, the one that has talked about the most is the Spider Experiment, which was by Judy Miles who wanted to know if, uh, spiders in zero G would form their webs, uh, in the same way as when they're on Earth, or there would be differences. And, uh, they were extensively studied by Owen Garriott as well. [00:23:42] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: If I remember correctly, there's the, the sequence of photos where he's doing the televised, um, uh, thing, the televised experiments, uh, about how the, uh, the spiders reacted in Zurich Gravity. Unfortunately, both of them didn't make it back down to earth. [00:23:59] John Mulnix: I [00:24:00] mean, I, I feel like there's a long tradition of science experiments that sadly animals go up, but they don't always come back down, which is unfortunate, but, you know, it's helping push the boundaries of what we know about space. [00:24:13] John Mulnix: So that's a good thing. I guess. [00:24:16] David Hitt: As I say, if you wanna be depressed someday read, uh, Colin Burgess's Animals in Space because, uh, nope. Can't do it. It's, it's not a series of happy endings. [00:24:24] Emily Carney: I, I can't read that book. Yeah, I, I, I saw it this time and I was like, nah, I'm good. I don't need this one. I love Colin. [00:24:31] Emily Carney: Nothing personal against Colin Burgess. Can't do this one. Sorry. Love you, Colin. But no, [00:24:38] John Mulnix: I'm pretty sure my, my kitty cat back there would have something to say about that if I was reading that book. Um, [00:24:45] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: you need to read the Cooper book. That's the, the best one on the sky. [00:24:50] Emily Carney: Oh God. Don't get me started on this. [00:24:52] Emily Carney: Come on. Gonna say no. Oh no. [00:24:54] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I don't wanna go. I'm pretty sure I just saw Emily's eyes shoot lasers out at me. [00:24:59] John Mulnix: I [00:25:00] mean, this is for my podcast. So, I mean, like, I, I don't have an explicit rating yet, but like, I'm sure we've got some choice words for that. Look, I, I would prefer not to have, to have to mark it. [00:25:13] John Mulnix: As, you know, a mature rating [00:25:16] Emily Carney: on Spotify. It's like an episode about space history. [00:25:20] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Uh, trust the Australians doing that one explicit. What happened [00:25:24] Speaker 8: on [00:25:24] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: this one? There's one thing I will say, just to, to cap off the, uh, student experiments. I've, I've been lucky enough to speak to a couple of them, and I gotta tell you, I feel like an absolute moron when I talk to these people because what they have done with their careers, you know, starting with these experiments in la oh, Kathy Jackson, for example, she's a lecturer at, I can't remember the name of the university. [00:25:47] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Uh, all these kids ended up being very, very, uh, uh, uh, uh, what's the word in English? Um, proficient at the, at the, uh, careers they chose as a result of what [00:26:00] they were doing on, on Skylab, uh, and. I love hanging around these people, but I also, uh, feel very, uh, imposter syndrome ish when I'm, when I'm around them. [00:26:13] John Mulnix: And actually, I, I saw an article somewhere where somebody tracked down, um, the students, you know, like fif basically, you know, half century later and kind of caught up with them. And if I can find that, I'll drop it in the show notes. But it's, it's amazing the careers that they had. It wasn't always just science related. [00:26:30] John Mulnix: I mean, some of them wasn't one of 'em, like a spy or something like that. I wanna say. Like they had a very diverse career path from, from, you know, the stuff that they did back in the seventies for that experiment. But I wanna read that. I'll, I'll have to find it. I, I read it a while ago, so I, I will include it in the show notes if I can find it. [00:26:50] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: One of them is in Hawaii doing a geological survey and so forth, studying the volcanic, uh, activity on the islands of Hawaii. So, you know, he, he's [00:27:00] living the luxury life. He says he loves it. [00:27:02] John Mulnix: That sounds pretty nice. Anything with Hawaii and, you know, [00:27:09] Emily Carney: if people are further interested in the student experiments, there is a, a NASA book they released I, I think in the late seventies. [00:27:17] Emily Carney: And it's, it's there, there's actually a really cool series and it was, I think it was published in 1978. But it's, it's a big set of like a, a lot of the findings from Skylab medical findings. Earth resources, find, et cetera. Uh, a new sun, uh, which is a really cool book. It's about, it's about some of the solar physics findings. [00:27:40] Emily Carney: Um, it's also part of that set, but there's a student experiment book as well, which is, which is kind of neat if you're into that. Um, there's a lot of seventies fashions in there too. If you're, if you're really into that, there's a lot of rusty schweikert with an afro in it, which is. Just amazing. So I No, seriously though, that book is really cool and [00:28:00] I'm, I think it's probably available on PDF if you really wanna read it. [00:28:04] Emily Carney: So if you, if you, you could probably find it on the internet, on probably archives.org for free. But if you want the hard copy, I'm sure there's probably a few of them floating on Amazon as well. If you really wanna read the book. That's a classroom in space. Yes, A classroom in space. And Joe Kerwin is on cover of the book with like a, a microscope. [00:28:24] Emily Carney: He is. So yeah. It, so yeah, it's a, it's a, and it's not a very big book. It's sort of a slim volume. I think the biggest volume and that whole series is the medical. The medical findings. It's not all of the medical findings, but it's a big chunk of them. And it's, it is like, it's like enormous. So if you really wanna read about the medical findings of Skylab, go get that book. [00:28:47] Emily Carney: But it's, I'm just letting you know it's huge and I didn't understand much of it 'cause I'm not a doctor, so, because I tried reading it and I'm like, yeah, that, oh yeah. I had no idea what they were talking about. So, [00:29:00] but um, anyway, uh, I think I'm getting off topic. Uh, are we still talking about our favorite sort of moments from the mission and stuff like that? [00:29:08] John Mulnix: No, you're good. I mean, rusty Schweikert with an Afro, I mean, that could be a favorite moment of the mission. So I think we're, we're still on topic for that. So go ahead with your ad. This an afro. [00:29:17] Emily Carney: Yeah, this was like the whole early s for no, yeah. No reason. Just he had an Afro. But, um, no, I think my favorite highlights from Skylab three and, um, I, I. [00:29:29] Emily Carney: And I, I know Dwight and David have seen this, and I know you probably have seen it too, John. Uh, it's available on YouTube is the tour that Jack Lama gives of Skylab. Uh, Jack Lama is awesome, of course, if you've ever met him. He's, he's very personable. He's very, he's probably, I like to say he is the friend. [00:29:48] Emily Carney: I mean, most of the astronauts are very friendly, but he is like above and beyond one of the most, you know, friendly, helpful astronauts. There is, you know, he's really cool. [00:30:00] But, uh, he gives a, a tour of Skylab and it's really cool because you get a good, like, um, he's, he's a good tour guide. He's, he's funny, you know, he's, and he is nice and stuff. [00:30:12] Emily Carney: He's the perfect person to give the tour. But another thing about it is you really get a picture of what it looked like in there and like how, like how everything was laid out in Skylab. So if you ever wanna find out like, okay, how was the actual space station? So oriented and laid out. That's a really good place to start. [00:30:30] Emily Carney: And it is on YouTube. It's not the best quality, but it's from 1973. Um, but, uh, yeah, another, it has a, a clip of, uh, you know, I think it was a, I Garriott doing barbershop on, uh, Alan be hair, you know, stuff like that. Like sort of little like, uh, candid moments of what it's like to live in space. Uh, things like that. [00:30:54] Emily Carney: I don't think this is part of the tour, but there's also the famous, uh, which I've [00:31:00] referred to earlier in this podcast, the famous shower scene with Jack Lama. I think that shower photo has probably been more associated with Skylab than anything from the, any of the three missions, which is kind of sad. [00:31:16] Emily Carney: But, uh, there is actually like a, a. I think what it comes from is they actually being in SMA actually did a demo of the shower and it was to show people, you know, hey, this is how we shower in space, you know, what fun and stuff. Uh, the truth is, I think that was the only time SMA used it because it was a real pain in the, it was a pain to use. [00:31:36] Emily Carney: It took like hours for you to use it because you had to squirt the water and wipe it up so it wouldn't, um, it wasn't like very user friendly because you just don't have gravity in there, you know? And on earth you have a gra you have gravity in the shower space, not so much. So it doesn't work like a earth shower. [00:31:55] Emily Carney: But um, yeah, in reality, I think that was the only time they used it because they found out like [00:32:00] sponge baths were just easier. I don't think Gart used the shower at all. That's not saying he's dirty or anything, but I think he was like, I ain't doing this. So he never used it. So, um. Yeah. So that, that's sort of the, the story behind those pictures, because if you look at the pictures, you would think, wow, they were using that thing every day. [00:32:20] Emily Carney: They were not, uh, they, I think they actually avoided it because they, it was just such a, I think they all tried it except for Gart. I think Gart was like, I ain't doing this. So, um, but yeah, it was kind of more of a pain than it was worth. So I, I don't think it was very popular, but they did do a demo of it, because that was kind of like a. [00:32:40] Emily Carney: A fun thing, like, wow, it even has a shower, you know? That's so cool. So they did demo it and unfortunately Jack was the, the model for that. He was the supermodel of the world for that. So I, I mean, the [00:32:53] John Mulnix: picture of Pete in the shower is pretty hilarious too. So, I mean, I feel like everybody always talks about Jack's picture, but [00:33:00] there's also Pete just kinda, yeah, yeah. [00:33:02] John Mulnix: Holding onto the, just as funny. Um, and the, I'm glad you mentioned the tour, 'cause I'll, I'll link to those videos in the show notes too. Just the interior volume of Skylab, that to me, like across all the missions is one of my favorite things about it is it was just massive. Um, I, I wanna say like the interior, like the pressurized volume of Skylab in like one piece is basically what the International Space Station has. [00:33:31] John Mulnix: Give or take, you know, a little bit of, you know, cubic feed or cubic meters, however you measure it, but just the fact that they launched that one massive station just still kind of blows my mind. [00:33:44] Emily Carney: Yeah. And it, it remains the largest, I think, single object put in space and probably to come back from space as well. [00:33:53] John Mulnix: Um, I, I'm glad you mentioned that. Um, the, the coming back to Space Park, that was the, uh. There [00:34:00] was an anniversary of Skylab reentering just a few days ago. Um, as of the day we're recording this, Dwight, do you want to talk a little bit about your connection with that? [00:34:12] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Well, you know, I remember vividly as a little boy, as a missed me. [00:34:16] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It missed me by about that much. Um, I remember going to bed the night that it struck and in Australia that we were part of the footprint, right? It was not guaranteed it was gonna hit Australia. It was just we were in the flight path. We knew that. So they made a big deal about it the night before I went to bed, which, um, around, you know, like eight o'clock ish as a 10-year-old would, it was a school day. [00:34:40] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I remember that. And, uh, actually that the, the impact is where my interest in Skylab first officially started because of a student that put in the principal's office an info poster about, which was, uh, titled Skylab is Falling. And then listed everything that Skylab had done while it was up there. And I thought, oh, you know, [00:35:00] standing there, reading it and of course got interested in all the, uh, uh, the, the info about it coming back now. [00:35:05] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And I remember when it hit. It was for Australia, it was huge because in those days, uh, you know, no internet, nothing, and this little town of ESP suddenly became the focus of, of the world. Uh, it had 10,000 residents there when, when it impacted. And for them it was a huge deal. Um, I, I was very lucky to get Amatic recording that NASA had made of news telecasts in Australia when the thing impacted. [00:35:35] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, in most of the cases, this footage no longer exists in the TV archive. So I've got the, like, the surviving material and, uh, the, um. The thing that was the funniest thing, they just set up like a shed because Aspens is not a big town, it's tiny. And, uh, they, they set up, set up a shed and charge people $1, Australian dollar, uh, [00:36:00] to get in 50 for kids. [00:36:01] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And they had like, you know, bits of metal and all that. That was, um, found. And I was out there for the 40th anniversary to, to show the film searching for Skylab. And uh, a lot of people came up to me and were saying, oh, you know, I was 10 years old as well, and we were playing on the beach and we picked up this fiberglas, we picked up this metal stuff, everything was on the beaches and we just threw it away. [00:36:23] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And I'm like, you what? And, uh, the, um, the one thing. [00:36:31] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It's the beautiful place on earth that I could imagine Skylab landing in as a final resting place. It's phenomenal. And there were people up on Wireless Hill that would've seen this thing coming in and know, interviewed this one farmer who was on his field seeing this, uh, the space station coming straight at him at past midnight. [00:36:51] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And he, he just said, uh, uh, I stood there and thought, well, the best place to go is jumping under my tractor, which wouldn't have done a thing to help him. [00:37:00] Um, and the, the amount of debris that is still in really good shape, like for example, the refrigerating unit. Uh, I, I, I'm pretty sure if they plugged it in, they could still get that thing to work. [00:37:13] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, there's a, a lot of artifacts that still have the soldering. You can see the wiring and, and the insulation and so forth, but the stuff is still intact. It's like that thing survived an impact. Yeah. Coming through the atmosphere. Um, heating to extreme levels, and yet it's still there. Something you can hold in your hand. [00:37:33] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Uh, there's bits of, um, uh, fiberglass that have been melted now looks like just little chunks of charcoal and plastic. Um, it's an amazing, or the, the, um, the spheres. You see, uh, uh, photographs of these huge spheres. I think they were the oxygen.[00:38:00] [00:38:02] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I think it might, could have also been the propellant. I'm not, I'm not quite sure. But these things are huge, right? One of them is intact, the other one has been ripped open and, and these things, one is intact. The other one looks as if a, a bomb went off in inside of it and, and, uh, ripped the thing open. Um, there was, there was one, uh, one, one, and the other thing that the, the, the residents were saying, because it was coming in at supersonic speeds, there were multiple, uh, uh, so booms and the residents thought, oh, good god, world War III has started because they, they, what had happened at, uh, midnight. [00:38:39] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: The radio stations and, and, um, I think it was NORAD had said the things impacted in the Indian Ocean, uh, were outta danger. So people went to bed thinking, okay, there's nothing gonna happen. Suddenly, multiple sonic booms and this debris hitting the tin roofs of all the, all the corrugated iron homes and sheds. [00:38:57] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And they had no idea what was going on at the [00:39:00] beginning. They're like, oh, oh, what's going on here? What's going on here? You know, multiple booms, big flash in the sky, this thing exploding into a fireball. Uh, and then there was like, hang on a second. And, uh, if you look on, on YouTube, uh, channel two Australian News has done a. [00:39:20] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Video segment of, of the day, it impacted. And originally people were calling in the radio station going, we just saw Skylab crash. Whatcha talking about? It's not coming down, it's coming down as I'm speaking to you. And even NASA going, no, no, no, no, you're all outta danger. People like, look, we've been on the phone trying to reach you. [00:39:37] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It's still coming down. And, and that's when, uh, the, the guys at NASA were like, oh. And there is footage of them in mission control getting the telephone calls from the, um, the emergency rescue services in Western Australia. Were saying, uh, look, we are getting reported sightings and Channel Nine actually videotaped this thing coming in from a, the top of those TV studios in, [00:40:00] they actually videotaped it as it was, uh, crashing in into Australia. [00:40:06] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, you know, it's, it's a telescopic shot. It's still in the sky. Um, in, in the film we used a computer generated, uh, approximation of how that would've looked. Uh, but they, they did actually, uh, shoot that. It's like, wow, that was a spectacular thing. And, uh, just for me, I, I think Emily and David, you probably had the same, uh, as thought Skylab was a failure because it re reentered Earth. [00:40:34] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And it was right up until we, we interviewed, uh, mark Pasta for, for the film who worked at norad, where he said, you have no idea how much information we gained from heavy objects coming back down to Earth. That was anything but a failure. What we learned from that allowed us to prepare from the next time that this sort of thing happened. [00:40:53] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: My opinion from that day, that was like, okay, I, I was already pro skylab. My opinion flipped, and there's no way [00:41:00] I'll refer to Skylab as a failure. No way. [00:41:03] John Mulnix: Well, and I know like, just for me, like when it's been mentioned in history classes, if at all, it's just like, oh yeah, Skylab, and then it burned up and everybody had their hats and that's basically all it was. [00:41:16] John Mulnix: But like going back to, you know, the, the crude missions of it, it was anything but a failure. I mean, from the launch of the station to the initial fix with the parasol and then with the second crew installing the tint pole. This proved so many things that we could do in space that are not possible without humans. [00:41:38] John Mulnix: So for me, I, I, that's why I love it. I mean, one of the many reasons, but, [00:41:45] David Hitt: so on a tangent on that for just a second. 'cause, uh, you know, so one, there's, you know, there's, there's the misperception that Skylab had an uncontrolled reentry. Um, you know, of course the reality is there were people in the control room the entire time. [00:41:58] David Hitt: You know, my favorite [00:42:00] example of that is, uh, astronaut Bunny, Bonnie Dunbar. Before she was an astronaut, she was actually one of the, uh, the flight controllers, you know, bringing in Skylab. Um. The software. I mean, this is kind of neat to me. The software that was used for Skylabs reentry was written, you know, a few miles from where I lived at the time. [00:42:19] David Hitt: So you've got, you know, me living, living, you know, near where, uh, where they wrote the software that brought it in, you know, right on top of right by where Dwight lived at the, uh, at the time, you know, and now we're on the same Zoom call, you know, 40 something years later. Um, but yeah, that, that, that, that, you know, there's, there's perception that it was the failure, you know, and, and the desire to, to rectify that and. [00:42:45] David Hitt: I mean, the reality is, you know, for, uh, for our generation, um, you know, if you say the word Skylab, um, you know, for, for, for our generation, the three names that come first to mind are, uh, you know, are on this call, the, uh, the people most likely [00:43:00] of our generation to be tagged on Twitter. When something about Skylab is posted are, uh, are currently on this call, um, the, the three people of our generation who have spent the most insane amount of time writing about and talking about and making a movie about a space program, they're like, we really don't have any significant memory of are all, are all here. [00:43:23] David Hitt: Um, I would love to hear y'all's version of, uh, you know, of, of, of, of why, uh, you, you could ask why a lot. [00:43:35] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Well, Emily, you were born in 78. You, you were born in 78. So you were 1-year-old when it, when it crashed. Not even. [00:43:42] Emily Carney: I can, I mean, I'll start if you want. Um, oh, I guess what brought me to the Skylab story is I have very vague, like very vague. [00:43:51] Emily Carney: Like I was, uh, one when Skylab crashed down. And I have very, like I said, extremely vague [00:44:00] memories of when that was going on, because it was a big new story and people were legitimately like thinking, oh my God, this is gonna crash on my house. And stuff. Like I, I mean they had, um, I don't remember this part of the story, but they actually had the EAS system, the emergency, you know, system. [00:44:19] Emily Carney: Like, okay, skylabs down everybody. Like, yeah. I mean, it was a big, it was a big deal. I mean, there was a lot of, uh. You know, it's kind of embarrassing now because really it wasn't much of a, wasn't much of a danger and thankfully it didn't hurt anybody when it, when it landed on parts of Australia. But it really wasn't much of a danger to land or anything. [00:44:41] Emily Carney: You know, most of it probably hopefully went in the Indian Ocean. But, um, so that was my first really vague memory of Skylab, like, you know, it coming back down. And um, uh, and I remember a few years later, um, I lived not really far away from the Space Coast, [00:45:00] so whenever there was a shuttle launch, me and my, you know, I would go outside and watch the early shuttle launches. [00:45:05] Emily Carney: And this was before, you know, this was pre challenger, you know, this was when the shuttle program was really first starting and starting to, you know, pick up some speed. And I, I, I was so, I was obsessed. I was a space nerd and I would, you know, my mom, my, my, my parents would get me like, you know, space books and stuff like that, you know, to sort of encourage it. [00:45:26] Emily Carney: And I remember reading the space books and. I can't remember what book this was. I couldn't tell you, but it had a thing about Skylab in it, and I was like, whoa, that looks really cool. You know, it looked kind of like a spider. I thought it was really cool. Uh, but I knew, but I, I knew it was a space station and people lived in it, and it had pictures and the, it had the shower picture. [00:45:48] Emily Carney: It had pictures of, you know, I think, I think it had the picture of, uh, of, uh, ed and, and Jerry Carr where he is like, you know. The, the picture where, you know, Ed's being held up by a, you know, [00:46:00] Jerry Carr's finger, stuff like that. And it looked like a lot of fun. I was like, wow, this is really neat. You know, and, and I'm about five seeing this, so I'm really little, you know, and I didn't have any technical knowledge whatsoever about Skylab. [00:46:14] Emily Carney: All I knew it was a, it was a space station and it looked really cool. So I think I had, I put pictures of it on my wall when I was a kid, you know, and I just thought it was the coolest looking, I just thought it was cool. Like, I, I can't explain it. Um, it was just a totally nerdy fixation of mine. Like, you know, I can't explain why I, I thought it was so cool. [00:46:37] Emily Carney: I, I think, I think we get that on this. We get that. Yeah. It's hard to explain the nerd part because I can't, I can't, there wasn't really a specific reason. I just thought it was like, wow, this looks really neat. And I thought the pictures. From the program looked cool. Like they looked like they were having a lot of fun in there and they were having a lot of fun in there. [00:46:55] Emily Carney: They looked like they were just, you know, enjoying the space that they [00:47:00] had and everything like that. And, um, as I got older and I got more into, in a space flight, you know, I read some books about Skylab and including homesteading space and, uh, I really just fell in love with the program all over again because I was like, man, why isn't this not being, you know, talked about, you know, the, it's not a, you know, it. [00:47:22] Emily Carney: And I think part of that is because it occupies a weird, sort of a weird point in space history, you know, which was the seventies. Um, you know, it was between the lunar landings, which were spectacular, you know, and not to take credit from what they did, but you know, lots of. You know, you know, very, you know, spectacular in the shuttle, which was also really spectacular. [00:47:46] Emily Carney: You know, and I think Style Lab and Apollo Soyers are kind of in that middle part where it's like, yeah, we're just going to space, whatever, you know? And it, it's not as spectacular to a lot of people and to me it's really amazing. But, you know, to [00:48:00] most people they're like, nah, whatever. They weren't going to the moon, you know, and stuff like that. [00:48:05] Emily Carney: But, um, I, I just think it, I, so as I got older and I started reading about it, you know, and, and I just started falling in love with it all over again. And then I started going to like, you know, astronaut scholarship foundation events and stuff like that. And I started to talk to the guys who had either worked or flew on Skylab. [00:48:24] Emily Carney: You know, I, and, um, uh, here's where I get started on, okay, I'll keep this blessedly short, but, um, I remember one of the first crews I talked to as. Crew as an intact crew was, I think, Skylab four. And it was, you know, when Pogue and Car were still around. And that was at the point where I was like, okay, this mutiny crap has gotta be untrue because these guys are just totally normal and cool. [00:48:54] Emily Carney: Like there's no attitude. Like they're not, you know, the, I'm not seeing [00:49:00] what other people wrote about whatsoever. You know, these guys are just really cool and helpful and, and a lot of, and they seem like fun guys. You know, like Pogue was really funny. Ed is funny as hell. Um, you know, cars really cool and calm. [00:49:14] Emily Carney: He, he's like kind of the epitome of a marine, you know. So I started to sort of talk to the guys from the missions and they were just freaking awesome, you know, all. I, I, I, I never got to speak to Conrad, unfortunately. 'cause he, he died before I got the opportunity, but I mean, way too young. Yeah, he died really young. [00:49:35] Emily Carney: Yeah. [00:49:35] John Mulnix: Way, way too young. [00:49:36] Emily Carney: But the rest of the guys I talked to, and they were just so freaking cool and, and helpful, you know, I mean, if you had a question about anything. So really that's what got me, uh, in the Sky Lab as a kid. Uh, very, you know, I just thought it looked cool and as an adult I fell in love with it, sort of from a completely, like a different perspective. [00:49:56] Emily Carney: I, I really fell for the people who worked and flew [00:50:00] on that program because I just was like, these, these, these guys are so cool and you just don't hear as much about what they've done. You know? I mean, and they deserve, they deserve to have their story put out there in, in some way because you just don't hear about it as much. [00:50:15] Emily Carney: I mean, we've heard a, uh, I'll close with this. You know, we've heard a million times about, you know, Apollo 11, and that's not to. That's not a dis against Apollo 11, but there's not many stories you can retell again about that. And it's like brand new. It's fresh, you know? And with Skylab, I feel like everything you hear about that program is brand new, you know, because it's just not talked about as much. [00:50:40] Emily Carney: So that's really what I've gotten, why I love the program and I'll probably continue. Uh, there's really nothing that won't get me to not like it ever. I'll, I'll probably be obsessed with it until the minute I crow. So that's really all I've got. [00:50:55] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I gotta, I gotta tell you, uh, David here, [00:51:00] Chris, and me, uh, a, a very, uh, endearing nickname, captain Ahab. [00:51:05] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, and it came about, and this leads, this leads into another, uh, I'm sure all of us find it. One of the favorite moments in Skylab. Um, there was a prank that, uh, Owen Gart played on the ground, uh, using. His wife's voice was prerecorded via the private communication, uh, uh, panel, and they recorded it on one of the, the tape they had there to listen to music and so on. [00:51:30] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And, uh, she pretended she was on Skylab and this audio, I tried to find it. David hadn't heard it. Emily, I don't think you ever even heard it. Right. And, uh, this is right before we, we went out to, to Huntsville to speak with Owen. I've find this, you find you can, how many was it where I, [00:51:57] David Hitt: the number of times Dwight was [00:52:00] working on that movie that he would send me a message on Facebook and say, Hey, look, do you have any leads at all on blank? [00:52:06] David Hitt: Like, I'm looking for, you know, I'm looking for, for Shepherd Dressing down the, uh, the Skylab Forrow. I'm looking for the, uh, for the tape of, uh, you know, of, of Helen, um, pretending she's on Skylab. I'm looking for the video of this. And I'm like, you know, I, I have never seen it. I have never heard anybody acknowledge that it exists. [00:52:27] David Hitt: And then you're like, the next day Dwight's like, oh yeah, I've got it. I mean, [00:52:33] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: and the best, the best was right when I did the, um, the, the Skylab four, uh, um, mission reports I wrote to Jerry Carr and I said, look, I'd like to send you a copy. And you, I explained the story and he goes, I really look forward to reading the book and Ahab, [00:52:49] John Mulnix: oh [00:52:49] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: my [00:52:49] John Mulnix: gosh. [00:52:50] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And I went, I've done it. Oh my gosh. [00:52:52] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Thanks [00:52:53] David Hitt: David. The worst, the worst was I heard a, uh, a story and I, you know, we, we talked about the [00:53:00] rating on this podcast, but a great story about the testing of the, um, the waste management system, the, uh, the space toilet on, uh, on, on, on Skylab. And, uh, and you know, and, and it's a story that even if I had known it when I was writing homesteading, it couldn't have gone and homesteading. [00:53:15] David Hitt: But it's a, uh, it's a great story. And, uh, so I had to share it with Dwight and dws, like, yeah, I've got the video. I [00:53:20] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: really wanna hear that. But I, even the audio from the conference, whether explaining how it all works. [00:53:31] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Oh, and the best thing is the [00:53:31] David Hitt: film runs in reverse. You spoil the ending. I'll tell you later, John. There I, that's, that's [00:53:37] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: okay. That's all you [00:53:38] Emily Carney: need. [00:53:40] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Actually. Cut that out. Cut that out. Let David, sorry, sorry. Don't worry about, [00:53:44] Emily Carney: yeah, I was like, whoa. And there's, oh God, I don't need to see this. Okay. [00:53:49] John Mulnix: Everybody's got a poop. [00:53:50] John Mulnix: I mean, it's, it's funny. So, I mean, you just gotta laugh about it. [00:53:54] Emily Carney: This has nothing to do with number two, but, um, or number one. But they also [00:54:00] tortured poor Ed Gibson in the name of science for Skylab four. So there's pic, there's actual pictures of him that they drew before the mission of his posture. And you can tell he's just like, I've had enough of this crap. [00:54:15] Emily Carney: Like his expression is just like. But, um, they drew pictures of his posture based on, I think they were based on photos and some of the photos are available in archives and I will never share them because he is not wearing much and he looks totally irritated. So it's pretty funny. So that, [00:54:33] John Mulnix: I mean, the things you do to go to space, I mean [00:54:36] Emily Carney: Yeah, he [00:54:37] John Mulnix: got to go to states. [00:54:38] John Mulnix: That seems exactly, seems pretty. Yeah. I mean that, but they [00:54:41] Emily Carney: tortured that, that child before and during Skylab four. God bless him. [00:54:46] John Mulnix: We'll, we'll have to talk about that later this year for Skylab four, correct? Exactly. Yeah. Just any final thoughts I guess for Skylab three? I mean, there was tons of EVAs, there was what, three [00:55:00] separate EVAs I think to get film from the Apollo telescope mount. [00:55:04] John Mulnix: Um, they installed the Twin Pole Sunshield. There's so many highlights from this mission. I feel like you can, you know, wherever you shake a stick, you're, you're hitting something for Skylab three, [00:55:20] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: it was the, the, the coolest thing, uh, speaking to Jack about the spacewalk. He said that was the best part of the whole, the whole time he was up on Skylab, you know, he just looked forward to it and he said, you know, you can go out there and, uh, you look for reasons to stay out there longer. [00:55:35] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: So, uh, there's a couple of instances on, on the, um, audio transcripts where I'm hearing, uh, Jack going, oh, uh, the story. I think we've got a story Mustgrave. I think, you know, we've got a blah, blah, blah, and it's gonna take a little longer to fix. And I'm going, I wonder if that was true or not. [00:55:52] John Mulnix: I, I can't blame Jack for doing that. [00:55:54] John Mulnix: I mean, if you, if you've got that kind of view, hard to, hard to beat that, [00:55:59] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: you know, you've [00:56:00] got, you've got the Apollo guys who, uh, like you think, uh, uh. Holy ground, you know, they're not human. Right? And when, uh, when there, there's a sequence of Jerry Carr talking in, in the film where, you know, the door opened to go outside and he just says, oh, do I really want to do this? [00:56:19] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And it's like, for me, that was like, this guy is a, you know, human. He's looking out the window going, you know, be careful what you wish for. 'cause you might get it. And, and, or like Ed Gibson, uh, Al always says, you know, oh, I hope that, uh, Newton Fellow was right. [00:56:36] David Hitt: Yeah. Alan Bean's description in, uh, in homesteading of going out for the, uh, for the EVA, because, you know, he is, he is of the Skylab three crew of the second crew. [00:56:45] David Hitt: The only one that's been on an EVA before because he's, he's, you know, walked on the moon in Apollo 12. And, uh, and just describing that difference of. Apollo 12, you know, you're there on a surface. It's, it's technically [00:57:00] a spacewalk, but it's like going outside versus Skylab, you know, it's like climbing out on the wing of a plane. [00:57:06] David Hitt: And, uh, just his description of what it was like, you know, when the, uh, when the hatch opened and he is first egressing, the, uh, the spacecraft is, uh, is kind of incredible [00:57:18] Emily Carney: to me. The, the legacy I guess, of Skylab three is, um, they were, they were called the SuperCrew because they got a ton of work and, and, and, and, and then some, um, I think they reached 150% of their goals. [00:57:33] Emily Carney: And, um, and we'll talk more about that. On the Skylab four episode. Yes. 'cause there's kind of some leakage over from that setting. A [00:57:42] John Mulnix: benchmark. [00:57:43] Emily Carney: Correct. We'll talk a little bit about more about that on the next episode. Mm-hmm. Episode. But, um, seriously though, Skylab three, uh, they did an incredible amount of work in space. [00:57:52] Emily Carney: And not only that, um, I think out of all the three Skylab crews and, and I, I don't like to pick a [00:58:00] favorite. That's like asking God, which, which of your kids do you like the most, you know, or which, which niece or nephew do you like the most? You know, you love all of 'em, but they just had a ton of fun up there. [00:58:10] Emily Carney: Like, I, I think Alan being just kept everything, um, really sort of, you know, very light, you know, he's. You know, he, he was somebody who, um, would listen to like, you know, sort of inspirational like tapes to, to get ins, you know, he would try to get inspired, you know, and things like that. And he, he did a so kind of like self-help tapes, you know, which is, which is really cool. [00:58:33] Emily Carney: But he, I really feel like he kind of set the tone for the whole mission. And if you look at the, what they were doing, and they seemed to have a, a lot of fun, you know, it was, I mean, they were serious about their job. I don't wanna make it sound like they were just chilling up there, but they, they. You know, if you look at like, even the Skylab tour, you know, you can tell Jack Lama's having fun, you know, he's having a good time. [00:58:54] Emily Carney: He is, you know, it's not really super, you know, heavy or anything like that. So that to [00:59:00] me is a legacy of Skylab three and plus, they did a ton of incredible work. You know, they, they maintenance the Space station, they put up the Twin Pole sunshade, which was not an easy feat, uh, at all, you know, I mean, it was, they still weren't meant to do spacewalks in that area, so that wasn't like, you know, yeah, we'll just go outside and put up a, a blind, you know, some Venetian blinds or something like that. [00:59:22] Emily Carney: It's not like the ISS [00:59:23] John Mulnix: is now. No, you know, there's not handrails everywhere. [00:59:26] Emily Carney: Yeah. It wasn't made for that. So they, you know, this was not an easy task, so they really did work very hard. But, I don't know, I think the legacy for me is just, they had a, they had fun and they got a lot of stuff done at the same time, and they really excelled. [00:59:41] Emily Carney: They were showing, you know, how sort of the, I'm trying to search for the right words here. The evolution of, okay, we're going to space for a couple, you know, a few weeks to, okay, now we're actually gonna try to live in space and see how this works, you know, day to day and, you know, and, and see how we can do this. [00:59:59] Emily Carney: [01:00:00] So, uh, and yeah, it set a precedent for what we know today as the ISS as well. You know, they do similar, not the same, but they do a lot of similar things, you know, whereas they're learning how to live in space for long periods of time, which is, you know, different from, obviously, you know, Apollo was like seven to 14 days, you know? [01:00:20] Emily Carney: So, yeah. That to me is the legacy of it. And when we discuss Skylab four, there's a lot more to discuss, you know, as far as working and living in space, you know, and, and schedules and how to work things out like that as well. So, but this was sort of the evolution of, okay, now we're going from camping trips to actually learning how to do this for, you know, six weeks at a time, or eight weeks at a time. [01:00:45] Emily Carney: So that to me is Skylab three's legacy, you know, it was awesome. Okay. I'm done. [01:00:52] David Hitt: Emily talked earlier about Skylab gets forgotten partially 'cause, and I, and I a hundred percent agree with this 'cause it's, it's, you know, it's right in the wake of [01:01:00] the moon landings, I mean, like six months after people were walking on the moon. [01:01:04] David Hitt: It's right before the space shuttle program shuttle flu for 30 years. So people, you know, it, it's, it's, there's a lot of history written about, a lot of history. Um, a hundred percent agree that that Skylab kind of gets lost between, you know, these two giants. But I also think Skylab is underappreciated somewhat because it's hard today to remember that we ever didn't know the things that, that Skylab taught us, that we ever needed to, you know, to know what happens if you live in space for two months. [01:01:33] David Hitt: I mean, like, that was ever a thing we needed to learn or, you know, it needed to know you, you can fix things on a spacewalk. Like that was a thing that once upon a time. We didn't know. And Skylab is the program that taught us everything. That's been the foundation of, you know, 50 years since. And in that light, the second crew kind of is, is, is even more than the others because. [01:01:58] David Hitt: Watching it, you wouldn't think you [01:02:00] were learning anything. I mean, it's the most smooth, the most just straightforward American space mission, you know, certainly compared to, uh, you know, to Apollo before it certainly compared to the other two Skylab missions, you know, compared to the early shuttle that can you live in space? [01:02:17] David Hitt: Yeah, we're gonna go, we live in space. Can you do work on spacewalk? Yeah, we're gonna do that. I mean, and, and they, they just, and they do, can you work in space? Yeah, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do 50% of it. Like, there's no, there's no drama about it. There's no there, you know, the, the excitement of, oh my gosh, can they do this? [01:02:34] David Hitt: Isn't there? 'cause they just like, they go up there and they do the thing that they're there to do and they come back. And, I mean, like I said, you look at. You look at missions, you know, going either way before or after it. And, uh, you know, I mean, there's, there's no STS one. Oh my gosh. The, uh, you know, the, the, the tiles fell off and there's no, you know, Skylab three, you know, ground to, uh, to space issues. [01:02:56] David Hitt: And there's no Skylab one. Can we or Skylab two, can we, uh, you [01:03:00] know, can we save the, the, uh, you know, the space station? I mean, it's just, they go up there, they do the thing, and then they come back. But up and going up there and doing the thing and coming back, they show a hundred percent conclusively. Hey, you know what? [01:03:15] David Hitt: We can go up there. We can do the thing, and we can come back. And I mean, and that's why we have space shuttle. That's why we have Space Lab. That's why we have ISS is 'cause we know, hey, yeah, you know what, you can go up there, you can do the thing, you can come back. [01:03:27] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I like to refer to something that this wise man once said. [01:03:31] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Um, he, he's pretty, uh, far up in the Skylab community. Uh, he said to me once, uh, Skylab is the first time that Orbit becomes a destination. [01:03:41] John Mulnix: That sounds familiar. [01:03:45] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Yes. David, David Smack, David Punch. David hit, hit, that's name. I never say that anymore. [01:03:53] David Hitt: Like that's, that's yours. That Little Bon is purely, I say the same [01:04:00] thing in other ways when I do other talks, but, uh, but, but that is reserved for [01:04:06] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: you. [01:04:06] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: There. There's, they did a lot of testing on, uh, on SL three. Uh, you know, the one that gets forgotten is, uh, the, um. The, uh, the MMU, the Man Maneuvering Unit, uh, developed by Bruce McCandless and two other gentlemen names Escape Me, uh, at the moment. And, uh, he, he worked to get that thing in an operational format that they could test it inside Skylab, because Skylab was so huge they could do it without exposing the astronaut to the, uh, dangers of being out in space and these sort of thing. [01:04:43] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And, and the, the MMU was then subsequently used on, on the shuttle. Um, and, and you know, probably one of the most iconic photos of NASA is Bruce McCamus in that, uh, jet pack. Um, what's a hundred [01:05:00] hundred feet away or 300 feet from, from uh, it's a couple hundred. [01:05:04] John Mulnix: Yeah. [01:05:04] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And you just think, whoa, uh, whether I could do something like that? [01:05:11] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: I dunno. I dunno. I mean. Incredible stuff. Uh, just the, the entire or observing the hurricanes and, uh, and, and ocean currents and so forth that they were doing up there. That was the first time we started looking inwards, you know, everybody was like, prior to that, we're going exploring, uh, to the moon or to outer space, or sending probes to Mars. [01:05:34] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: And with Skylab, they turned the cameras back down on Earth. For the most part. There was the solar, uh, investigations, but for the most part, Skylab was up there to be a laboratory in the sky. And they were looking at earth, uh, observing droughts, uh, uh, in Africa and, and so forth. And, uh, I think the thing that hit me the most from, from the legacy of Skylab was being at the [01:06:00] Aztec Open Day in, I think it was 20 16, 20 17, where, uh, I think his name is, uh, one of the Belgian astronauts for Issa. [01:06:10] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: He said, uh. We do not have enough scientists to analyze all the data that they connect collected on Skylab. They still haven't gone through the data collected on Skylab 50 years later because they don't have enough specialized scientists to actually analyze it. It's like, whoa. And you know, the Russians were even thanking the Skylab crew for having all that open data that they could plan their mere missions. [01:06:37] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Uh, this is the, the Skylab is the foundation of everything to do with orbital, uh, living in space that, that came afterwards. It's, uh, it's, it's very underappreciated [01:06:50] John Mulnix: and this is like why I love history. Me personally is, I, I've been reading a lot of books by Neil Postman lately, so it's been getting me on this whole [01:07:00] thing about like the history of technology. [01:07:02] John Mulnix: And how when we're learning, like we learn about biology or chemistry or computers or something, learning the history of that science is important. And that's what's so cool about Skylab, is it's literally the science of how humans live and work in space. And we have the history of that for future generations to study, which is just so cool. [01:07:29] John Mulnix: And you know, we're at 50 years since the first mission. What, what's it gonna be in a hundred years? You know, I'm sure those, those lessons that were learned in Skylab are still gonna be applicable then. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, if we're around, hopefully knock on wood, be around in 50 years for that, that next, uh, anniversary. [01:07:51] John Mulnix: But it's just wild to think about how we literally learned, you know, orbit was the destination. As, as David and Dwight you've [01:08:00] said. Uh, that's. That's so cool to me. So I think that's a, that's as good a point as any to end on for Skylab three. We'll be back later this year for a little Skylab, or not little, we may have to break Skylab four up into two parts. [01:08:18] David Hitt: Uh, thank you for doing this. This is the first time the three of us have, have ever done a skylight conversation like this. And this has been so much fun. Yes. Thank you. Uh, just getting through. It's cool. Do this. So we appreciate you Yeah. Having us and, uh, and, and letting us have this chat. And always, always a pleasure talk to you about it. [01:08:36] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Thank you guys. It's [01:08:38] Speaker 8: been a lot of fun. [01:08:39] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: If I may paraphrase, David hit John Mulnicks is the first time that the three of us get that destination. Oh, it didn't work. It was funny by the way. Uh, we'll do this for Skylab four. Um, it's not called Scar Lab anymore. It resides in Australia now. So, and this is an [01:09:00] old joke and it's hilarious for me at least. [01:09:02] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: It's still, um, it's called Skylab. I was gonna say for the next [01:09:06] David Hitt: one, you need to recast me with Francis French doing his, David hit, talking about Skylab impression and, uh, it'll be far more entertaining. Oh my [01:09:16] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: gosh. We could do impersonations of each other. That'd be great. [01:09:20] John Mulnix: Or like an Australian slang. Yeah, exactly. [01:09:23] John Mulnix: Like you have some slang for that. 'cause like, I've seen some pretty hilarious stuff or, or heard some hilarious stuff. So we may have to include that in with, uh, the next one. [01:09:35] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Lab is the first point, but Orbit becomes a destination. [01:09:41] Emily Carney: Destin. Imagine if Phil Chapman had actually gotten a, gotten a chance to play in Skylab. [01:09:46] Emily Carney: That would've been, oh, down there boys. That would've been fun. That would've been beautiful. [01:09:52] John Mulnix: Again, I mean, if anyone from, uh, apple is listening, I, I, you know, we're available for [01:10:00] consulting for, for all mankind, but I think sadly they've already moved past that era in the alternate timeline. So I think we've missed our shot for that spinoff, unfortunately. [01:10:08] John Mulnix: But spinoff is the answer. Spinoff, yeah. There we [01:10:10] David Hitt: go. [01:10:10] John Mulnix: And it's, this [01:10:11] David Hitt: is [01:10:11] John Mulnix: doable. Oh man. Well thank you guys. Uh, thank you all for coming on. This has been awesome. [01:10:17] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: Thank you. Looking forward to the next show. [01:10:18] Emily Carney: Yes, thank. Thank [01:10:20] Dwight Steven-Boniecki: you. [01:10:22] John Mulnix: That's it for this episode. We're going to do another deep dive for Skylab four later this year, so make sure you keep your eyes on the feed and the substack for more details. [01:10:33] John Mulnix: I'll be announcing it beforehand so there's time for everyone to get questions sent in. If you would like to ask one, let me know about your favorite Skylab mission or highlight. Drop me a line at john@thespaceshot.com or send me a message on substack. Speaking of Substack, be sure you sign up. The link is in the show notes. [01:10:53] John Mulnix: You're gonna wanna be signed up so you can get entered to win some cool prizes as we celebrate 50 years of Skylab. [01:11:00] I'd also appreciate it if you could leave a review through your podcast platform of choice. It really helps other people find out about the show. And until next time, I'm John Mulnix and I'll catch you on the flip side.