User:GeeBee60/sandbox mutiny

The Skylab Mutiny story

During the third and final mission of the U.S. space station Skylab, tensions developed with ground control that, years later, became written of as the The Skylab Mutiny. When NASA launched the Skylab 4 (SL-4) crew of three rookies astronauts in November 1973, the agency was unprepared for the complex differences between a two week round-trip flight to the moon and a 12 week earth orbital mission. SL-4 was the longest duration flight to date (by several weeks), and difficulties were met with varying levels of preparation and grace on the ground and in orbit. While problems were reported in the news during the mission, it was in the aftermath of the mission, when returned astronauts, relieved family members, and retired technicians could each be quietly interviewed, and when transcripts and images and reports could be mined for science and drama, that imaginatively vivid descriptions of some of the events began to reach print. In the months and years to follow, provocative article titles appeared, such as "Strike in Space", and "Skylab Crew's Mutiny Forced a Change in Space Program".

The various stories and reports have conflicting timelines and conclusions, and numerous sources dispute the more dramatic presentations. It is generally agreed that the crew of Skylab 4- commander Gerald Carr, pilot William Pogue and solar physicist Edward Gibson- faced an array of minor difficulties and conflicts with mission control, beginning with a failed attempt at diguising Pogue's early space sickness from mission control. Their workload expectations were unatainable, several experiments were mishandled, and free time extremely limited. By about halfway into the record setting 84 day mission -- exactly when is uncertain -- things went from simmer to boil and, in the words of Commander Gerald Carr, "... finally, on day 48 or 50, we rebelled, we just stopped everything.

The mutiny scenario argues that sometime during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve 1973, radio communication with NASA ground control was cut. The described length of the communication break varies, as well as whether it was accidental or intentional. Several publications describe an all-day silence, others state that a silence longer than one orbit is without any basis or plausibility, and still others contend that there is no solid evidence that any break occured. It is agreed that there were frank discussions between the crew and NASA, but that too is confused because the crew was expected to respond to a pre-existing survey (Experiment M487: Habitability/ crew quarters) which probed for opinions about much of the living supplies and furnishings, seeking evaluations for what did and did not function aboard Skylab.

Despite the earlier problems, when the mission concluded in February 1974 after 84 days, it was characterized as highly productive and successful. And yet, questions remained. During thee mission both the crew and ground control voiced irritations publicly. During the weekly press briefings some NASA staff were strongly judgemental, leading to articles such as "Astronaut Goofs, Ruins Earth Study Photographs" and "Lethargy of Skylab 3 Crew Is Studied". Remarks by Capcom Richard Truly were unforgiving, such as his snipe on December 31 that: "... the schedules had been hurt because of restrictions insisted upon by the crew. He said opportunities for science studies had been lost because the crew insisted on undisturbed periods for exercise and for presleep and post‐sleep relaxation." Meanwhile, both Pogue's and Carr's testiness also went on record around the same time, Carr stating "...", while Pogue was more colorful:

When we’re pressed bodily from one point of the spacecraft to another with no time for even mental preparation, let alone getting the experiment ready, there’s no way we can do a professional job. I don’t like being put in an incredible position where I’m taking somebody’s expensive equipment and thrashing about wildly with it and trying to act like a one-armed paper hanger. -- William Pogue

At the end of the mission both military men returned from orbit wearing abundantly non-regulation beards. Meanwhile, the country was caught up in other controversies, such as the OPEC oil embargo, the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (bribery and corruption), and the Watergate scandal and resulting articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. While eventually aspects of the Skylab 4 mission received considerable and controversial attention, that attention was slow to build. The day of splashdown, the longest duration spaceflight to date became the first flight to not have the return reported live. Only in the months and years that followed the mission did the results and conflicts slowly receive deeper notice.

Two years after the mission, author H.S.F. Cooper reviewed and interpreted NASA mission communications of the various transcribed events, and concluded ... .". That aspect of his extensive book received considerable attention, with some publications repeating and extending this particular story while others published dissenting opinions from astronauts, doctors, mission controllers, and other authors. Whether or not the characterizations were accurate, the story developed and expanded, more reporters read deeply or scanned quickly Cooper's book and the Mission Control transcripts, and "rebellion", "strike", "revolt", "work slowdown", and by 1984 (probably sooner) "Skylab mutiny" all appeared in the press.

The two "sides" squared off publicly in 1979, in L5 [journal]

Divergent opinions regarding the "mutiny" continue to appear almost 30 years after the conclusion of Skylab. Skylab was the last time American astronauts worked in a space station for two decades, until the Shuttle–Mir Program in the 1990s. (Mir was a space station program with far greater earth - ground animosity, this time with international complications.) Both Skylab successes and shortfalls contributed to the planning of future space missions, especially long-term missions.The Skylab mission has been raised as case study in various fields of endeavor including space medicine, team management, and psychology. Man-hours in space were, and continued to be into the 21st century, profoundly expensive; a single day on Skylab was worth about $22.4 million in 2017 dollars.

From Moon to Earth

The launch of the U.S. space station Skylab, in 1973, marked NASA’s transition from the lunar competition to the orbiting space laboratory. The first crewed mission, Skylab 2, was 28 days in duration, which was twice as long as any previous American mission. Skylab 3 doubled this record, to 59 days. At 84 days, Skylab 4 extended the duration record by almost one more month. None of the crew had been to space before.

Mission Control planned extra work for the rookie crew, and placed considerable faith in measures to hasten their adaptation to working in space. The crew's days were scheduled at rates near the ending rate of the previous crew. The three-man crew, Commander Gerald P. Carr, Science Pilot Edward G. Gibson, and Pilot William R. Pogue fell behind the aggressive schedule and worked through several planned days off. Other factors likely also contributed to crew frustration. The crew pushed back and got some schedule relief mid-December, then described their rest days as not especially restful near new year. Mission Control created a "shopping list" of tasks that could be worked any time, and allowed for a genuine rest day on January 10, and the mission proceeded smoothly afterward.