official nasa PRIME CREW LITHOGRAPH skylab 1 mscl 105

Description

official nasa PRIME CREW LITHOGRAPH skylab 1 mscl 105. Condition is "New". Shipped with USPS First Class.
As of 2021, Skylab was the only
space station
operated exclusively by the
United States
. A
permanent station
was planned starting in 1988, but funding for this was canceled and replaced with United States participation in an
International Space Station
in 1993.
Skylab had a mass of 199,750 pounds (90,610 kg) with a 31,000 pounds (14,000 kg)
Apollo command and service module
(CSM) attached
[4]
and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life science and physical science experiments. It was launched uncrewed into
low Earth orbit
by a
Saturn V
rocket modified to be similar to the
Saturn INT-21
, with the
S-IVB
third stage not available for propulsion because the orbital workshop was built out of it. This was the final flight for the rocket more commonly known for carrying the crewed Apollo Moon landing missions.
[5]
Three subsequent missions delivered three-astronaut crews in the Apollo CSM launched by the smaller
Saturn IB
rocket. For the final two crewed missions to Skylab, NASA assembled a backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB in case an in-orbit rescue mission was needed, but this vehicle was never flown. The station was damaged during launch when the
micrometeoroid shield
tore away from the workshop, taking one of the main solar panel arrays with it and jamming the other main array. This deprived Skylab of most of its electrical power and also removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable. The first crew deployed a replacement heat shade and freed the jammed solar panels to save Skylab. This was the first time that a repair of this magnitude was performed in space.
Skylab included the
Apollo Telescope Mount
(a multi-spectral solar observatory), a multiple docking adapter with two docking ports, an airlock module with
extravehicular activity
(EVA) hatches, and the orbital workshop, the main habitable space inside Skylab. Electrical power came from solar arrays and fuel cells in the docked Apollo CSM. The rear of the station included a large waste tank, propellant tanks for maneuvering jets, and a heat radiator. Astronauts conducted numerous experiments aboard Skylab during its operational life. The telescope significantly advanced solar science, and observation of the
Sun
was unprecedented. Astronauts took thousands of photographs of Earth, and the
Earth Resources Experiment Package
(EREP) viewed
Earth
with sensors that recorded data in the
visible
,
infrared
, and
microwave
spectral regions. The record for human time spent in orbit was extended beyond the 23 days set by the
Soyuz 11
crew aboard
Salyut 1
to 84 days by the
Skylab 4
crew.
Later plans to reuse Skylab were stymied by delays in the development of the
Space Shuttle
, and Skylab's
decaying orbit
could not be stopped. Skylab's atmospheric reentry began on July 11, 1979,
[6]
amid worldwide media attention. Before re-entry, NASA ground controllers tried to adjust Skylab's orbit to minimize the risk of debris landing in populated areas,
[7]
targeting the south Indian Ocean, which was partially successful. Debris showered
Western Australia
, and recovered pieces indicated that the station had disintegrated lower than expected.
[8]
As the Skylab program drew to a close, NASA's focus had shifted to the development of the Space Shuttle. NASA space station and laboratory projects included
Spacelab
,
Shuttle-
Mir
, and
Space Station
Freedom
, which was merged into the
International Space Station
.
Background
[
edit
]
Rocket engineer
Wernher von Braun
, science fiction writer
Arthur C. Clarke
, and other early advocates of crewed space travel, expected until the 1960s that a space station would be an important early step in space exploration. Von Braun participated in the publishing of a series of influential articles in
Collier's
magazine from 1952 to 1954, titled "
Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
". He envisioned a large, circular station 250 feet (75 m) in diameter that would rotate to generate
artificial gravity
and require a fleet of 7,000-ton (6,400 metric tons)
space shuttles
for construction in orbit. The 80 men aboard the station would include
astronomers
operating a
telescope
,
meteorologists
to forecast the
weather
, and
soldiers
to conduct
surveillance
. Von Braun expected that future expeditions to the
Moon
and
Mars
would leave from the station.
[9]
The development of the
transistor
, the
solar cell
, and
telemetry
, led in the 1950s and early 1960s to uncrewed satellites that could take photographs of weather patterns or enemy nuclear weapons and send them to Earth. A large station was no longer necessary for such purposes, and the United States
Apollo program
to send men to the Moon chose a mission mode that would not need in-orbit assembly. A smaller station that a single rocket could launch retained value, however, for scientific purposes.
[10]