Talk:Skylab 4/Archive 1

"Highlights"

 * "The crew reported that the food was good, but slightly bland. The crew would have preferred to use more condiments to enhance the taste of the food. The amount of salt they could use was restricted for medical purposes. The quantity and type of food consumed was rigidly controlled because of their strict diet." Wow, these are some serious highlights! ΛιΘlοгШιlε 02:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

"Career-killing act?"

 * However, it cannot escape notice that although they were all rookies, none of the three astronauts in this crew would ever fly in space again. Whether or not this was the result of their 'mutiny' is somewhat debatable, as there was only the ASTP mission left between Skylab-4 and STS-1. But it cannot be denied that, within the NASA management mind-set at least, their self-imposed day off was undeniably a career-killing act.

According to the Wikipedia biographies of the astronauts, at least two of them had retired long before the shuttle flew, and one eventually stepped down (date not given). This passage seems dubious at best.--Idols of Mud 18:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that it's true, of course. Read the literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.120.91.208 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 4 March 2009‎

Disambiguation of mission numbers:
The way Skylab entries mix SL (Skylab Launch) and SLM (Skylab Launch Manned) numbers is confusing to the uninitiated. The Skylab X usage should always refer to the manned mission numbers as used in all the Skylab Patches and other symbols. When referring to the launch sequence, use of the form Skylab Launch X makes the meaning clear. This section would therefore be less ambiguous titled Skylab Launch 4. I worked the whole Skylab Mission as a computer operator in the Real Time Computer Center, and verbally both on loop and off, I never heard a reference to Skylab 4, there is no such thing, it is Launch 4. Our use of the manned mission numbers was so extensive that even as the countdown approached T-minus 4 days on SL-1, we in the RTCC, began to refer to the mission as Skylab 0. Mmm, just looked at the NASA site, looks like they started this confusion... nevermind.Skylab72 (talk) 21:11, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarized
Most of this article is nicely plagiarized from http://libcom.org/history/1973-skylab-4-mutiny. Excellent work, Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.120.91.208 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 4 March 2009‎


 * Other way round (check the dates). That article was uploaded on April 4, 2007.  The text here had by then already been in this article for years. Jheald (talk) 22:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Last splashdown
Can anyone provide a source making the assertion that this was the most recent splashdown in human spaceflight history? Aren't Soyuz and Shenzhou spacecraft dry landings? (sdsds - talk) 22:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * ASTP splashed down on July 24, 1975. a year and a half after Skylab 4. Saintamh (talk) 05:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Mutiny
Someone needs to describe the mutiny that occured on this mission at the end of December. The fact that there is no mention of this situation indicates that we may have biased contributors to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.50.2 (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree. But it obviously has to be well sourced. It's exactly the kind of material that the citation nazis would delete in a nanosec. El Ingles (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It should also be noted that Gerald Carr denies it was a mutiny: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_12979893. kcowolf (talk) 08:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

From the libcom article it is stated they turned off the communications radio. Given the mission, location, and 'the whole world watching' I think that pretty well qualifies as a determined protest if not mutiny. Every one of them was military and it CERTAINLY was disobeying standing orders --Razer Ray, 8 Feb 2015 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.249.94.142 (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Didn't the people in Mission Control at the time also deny it? I seem to remember Gene Kranz saying something about it but I'll have to go through my sources again. --Jupiter-4 (talk) 03:49, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I just read through Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story and Neil Hutchinson, one of the flight directors, also denies the so-called "mutiny" that occurred during the mission. Basically the crew had forgotten to turn on their radios during an orbit because they were trying to catch up on their work, which prompted the whole "mutiny in space" story. --Jupiter-4 (talk) 06:55, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

The material here might be useful? http://history.nasa.gov/SP-483/ch8-4.htm

""According to Cooper (1976,1979), the cordiality which characterized the relations between the first two manned Skylab missions (Skylab 2 and 3) and mission control did not characterize the relations between the third manned Skylab mission (Skylab 4) and mission control. Instead, the relationship between Skylab 4 and mission control was strained for approximately the first half of the mission. According to Cooper (1976), the crew was given to "blistering language," displayed a high degree of "grumpiness," and reacted to external authority with "ridicule, hostility, and exasperation." The climax came when, according to Cooper, the Skylab 4 crew "rebelled" by taking a day off. After the "rebellion," the relations between the crew and mission control improved, and so did the crewmembers' performance."

""Not everyone shares Cooper's view of these incidents. According to Bluth (1979), many of the "blistering comments" about the living conditions were in direct response to a habitability questionnaire. Rather than symptomatizing general irritability and peevishness, the critical comments and complaints reflected candid assessments of faulty equipment. Bluth agrees that the astronauts did take a day off. However, she characterized the work slowdown as a legitimate attempt on the commander's part to put a "hold" on activities pending a clarification of instructions and establishment of a suitable work pace. However, there is some agreement that the Skylab 4 crew appeared to be under an unusual degree of pressure, and that there was an unanticipated degree of friction between this particular crew and mission control."""

From "LIVING ALOFT - Human Requirements for Extended Spaceflight" published by the NASA History Office - seems a reasonably good source. This is from [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-483/ch8-4.htm 8. ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT EXTERNAL RELATIONS]

I think something should be said about it as there are so many articles on the topic - so it's clearly notable. Even if it is untrue, or in some respects not entirely accurate - I'd say it's notable enough to be covered, and then the various views on what happened explained. Robert Walker (talk) 15:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I have removed the reference to the mutiny from this article, but I don't think it should be gone forever - I have yet to figure out the correct sourcing and phrasing to explain the situation. Main article: Skylab mutiny.  One article goes to great lengths to explain what happened, and goes to some trouble to suss out the source of the error.  It also references a well-sourced Reddit post investigating what happened in some detail. -- ke4roh (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/ringing-in-the-new-year-with-mutiny-in-orbit. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. kcowolf (talk) 00:43, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

File:Skylab and Earth Limb - GPN-2000-001055.jpg
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Altitude vs. Apogee (bad metric conversion?)
Under the Mission Parameters headline, I find this confusing, but perhaps there is a valid explanation?

Maximum Altitude: 440 km (270 mi) ... Apogee: 437 km (272 mi)

How can 440 km equal 270 miles, while 437 km equals 272 miles? By my math, 440 km is roughly 264 miles.

And I'm assuming the apogee and max altitude are different because of the egg-shape of the earth? Perhaps the max altitude was achieved nearer the poles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4c3:4002:a820:cd74:9874:f9ce:6f68 (talk) 19:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * You are really asking two different questions. First, the inconsistent conversion is explained by a known "flaw" in our convert template: if the input has trailing zeroes, the number of significant figures is reduced, causing rounding in the output. To get the correct conversion of 440 km, "sigfig=3" is required; this gives a more correct output of 273 miles.
 * Now, why is "max altitude" different from the apogee? This is probably due to the fact that a spacecraft's orbit decays over time because it's not completely above the atmosphere. The maximum altitude was probably at the start of this mission (November 16, 1973), and the 437 km number was at the "epoch" (time) of January 21, 1974. That is why orbital parameters are meaningless without the epoch; they are not constant. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:14, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

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