Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Remembering Skylab

Or for those of you born after 1979: Skylab, not just a 90s era electronica band

On July 11, 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab burned up in the atmosphere.  Around the world people worried that debris from the lab would land on them, and NASA officials calculated the odds of station re-entry debris hitting a human were 1 to 152. Fortunately, most of the debris landed in the Great Australian Desert and no one was injured.  Skylab was a precursor to the space station.  

Georgia Congressman John W. Davis (second from left) with the first crew for Skylab in 1973.  Davis served on the Science and Astronautics Committee (1961-1974) chaired the Subcommittee of Science, Research, and Development.  He was also a big fan of the space program.
The Russell Library has many collections that document the United States Space Program:
Great keywords for browsing in the collections database include: Space,  National+Aeronautics+Space+Administration, N.A.S.A., and yes, even Skylab!






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