Skylab Will Come Tumbling Down

The U.S. abandons efforts to salvage its space station

It was the pride of the U.S. space program, the largest and most sophisticated vehicle ever sent into orbit. Circling the earth every 90 minutes, the 85-ton Skylab had been a scientific workshop for three teams of astronauts for a total of 172 days. But lately it has been in trouble. Unoccupied since 1974, Skylab has been losing altitude much more rapidly than expected, a change threatening it with incineration in the earth's atmosphere.

To prevent that, NASA engineers had devised a daring rescue. The new space shuttle, slated to make its first flight in September, would intercept Skylab, attach a small booster engine to one end, then fire it. Thus space planners could either raise Skylab.to a higher orbit or send it plunging harmlessly into an ocean. Last week, after weighing the chances of such an orbital operation, NASA conceded defeat. That means Skylab will expire in a meteorite-like death that could scatter parts of the space station on populated regions.

Space officials cannot tell precisely when the "random reentry" (as NASA jargon has it) will occur. Best estimate: some time between mid-1979 and mid-1980. They do know that most of the space station will burn up in the atmosphere. But about one-third of the station will rain down in a shower of some 500 fragments along a track up to 6,440 km (4,000 miles) long and 160 km (100 miles) wide. Its location: somewhere in a broad, globe-girdling belt as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as the tip of South America. About 75% of that area is water, and much of the land is sparsely inhabited. Thus the danger is slight; NASA believes that "the probability of injury or damage is less than that from meteorites." Astronomer Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory concurred, saying that there was really "nothing to worry about."

Perhaps so. But such assurances did not ease NASA'S embarrassment over the whole Skylab affair, which arose because of a scientific error about the extent of sunspot activity in the late 1970s and its effect on Skylab. By spewing out clouds of charged particles, these great solar magnetic storms help heat up and expand the earth's upper atmosphere. That creates more drag for objects in orbit, hastening their reentry. Confronted by a falling Skylab, NASA last spring began developing the $26 million booster engine. But it was clear, especially after troubles with the shuttle's own engine, that a Skylab rescue could not be undertaken before April 1980. By then, chances of success were reckoned at less than 10%. So, swallowing its pride, NASA asked for, and got, President Carter's permission to scuttle the entire Skylab salvage.

Following the U.S.'s successful exploration of the planet Venus with multiple Pioneer spacecraft, the Soviet Union last week landed an unmanned probe of its own on the Venusian surface. Unlike the American ships, which were primarily designed to study the Venusian atmosphere, Venera 12's lander also transmitted data from the surface for an impressive 110 min. before succumbing to the 480DEG C (900DEG F) temperature. As usual, the Soviets mixed in a little politics, placing an image of Lenin on the planet. Another Soviet craft, Venera 11, was set to reach this hot world Christmas Day.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.