Making Skylab Human-Friendly

airspace ^ | 3MAY19 | By Rebecca Maksel

[vannrox]

Making Skylab Human-Friendly

Best known for his iconic designs, from the Lucky Strike logo to Air Force One, Raymond Loewy also consulted on NASA’s first space station.

They dined on Lobster Newberg, fresh bread, and butter cookies, and slumbered in their own individual berths, which had the luxury of privacy curtains. But in the blackness of space, there was one thing the Skylab astronauts still craved: Color. As Skylab commander Gerald Carr told the New York Times in September 1994, the astronauts were so starved for color they would stare at the test color bars used to calibrate their cameras.

Skylab was the United States’ first temporary space station (it was occupied between May 1973 and February 1974), and effort was put into making it habitable. NASA hired the industrial design firm Raymond Loewy/William Snaith, which had already worked with the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and the Maritime Commission. The firm was hired to evaluate Skylab’s “floor plan arrangement, color schemes, lighting, noise levels, and all other factors relating to human comfort in confined quarters,” writes historian Layne Karafantis in a 2013 paper.

[buckalfa]

A whiter shade of pale?

[from occupied ga]

Making Skylab Human-Friendly

Why bother? Were any of the 9 or so people who went on this boondoggle going to stay home because they didn't like the color scheme?

[beef]

Manned spaceflight itself is a boondoggle. So much wasted for a few photo ops.

[from occupied ga]

Manned spaceflight itself is a boondoggle. So much wasted for a few photo ops.

Absolutely agree. No value to it. If we have to explore other planets, then robots are the way to go. Now that we have determined that Venus in hot enough to melt lead, has a sulfuric acid vapor atmosphere and consists of rocks and dirt and Mars consists of rocks and dirt, and that every non-terrestrial body we've been able to get data on consists of rocks and dirt although with some exotic atmospheres, what more are we going to find? More rocks and dirt. More taxpayer funded fat salaries for engineers who produce things for which there is no practical use.

[Yo-Yo]

A whiter shade of pale?

Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion

[beef]

Some things like the Voyagers and Pioneers I think were very much worth it. But all we have learned from sending men into space is that it is really hard to keep people alive and functioning up there. With ever improving computers, the case for people can only be made on the basis of some romantic notion of space flight. I predict that the first attempt to send people to Mars will wind up with everyone dying a protracted and public death. That will put a damper on manned space flight for a while.

[I want the USA back]

I agree with several other posters. Robots are the way to go. No life support needed. No toilets. No food. No boredom. No radiation danger. No chromosome damage. No weakening of the muscles. No getting sick. They can even send up two: one male, and the other female, so the news media can proclaim whatever it wants to proclaim about the “first” whatever in space.

[Lazamataz]

You guys are crazy.

Robots will kill all humans.

Do not send robots.

[Go_Raiders]

Those lyrics are from “Nights in White Satin (The Night)” by The Moody Blues, not from “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum (and later Annie Lennox).

[tet68]

Space is just an ocean, men died to cross it too.
Now we call it the earth, and look to cross the stars!

[from occupied ga]

Robots will kill all humans.

Already replaced most. You're not too far down the list

[buckalfa]

I see that you are into blues that are moody.

[MeganC]

Monochromatic prison cells for inmates in solitary confinement are a well known form of torture.

[beef]

“Space is just an ocean, men died to cross it too.”

Back in the day, they just left and never came back. Today, we would get a hysterical 24/7 ringside commentary while they run out of oxygen. Even the Challenger explosion was over in an instant. This could take weeks or months.

[Tallguy]

If we go that way there won’t be any cool Rutger Hauer replicants to fight in 50 years time!

[Yo-Yo]

Those lyrics are from “Nights in White Satin (The Night)” by The Moody Blues, not from “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum (and later Annie Lennox).

The italics in my post didn't come out because of an HTML error on my part, but it was a musical response to a musical post.

It was not intended to suggest that they were both from the same song.