The Skylab 2 crew (the station’s launch was labeled Skylab 1) spent 28 days in orbit. Their main objective was to repair the station and install a sunshade to cool the living quarters before conducting solar astronomy, Earth resources experiments, and medical studies. The Skylab 3 crew more than doubled the previous spaceflight record, spending just under 60 days in orbit. They continued maintenance on the station and additional scientific and medical experiments.
Skylab 4 broke all duration records. Astronauts Gerry Carr, Bill Pogue, and Ed Gibson launched on November 16, 1973, on a demanding 84 day mission. Their plan called for a total of 6,051 working hours between the three men, including unloading and stowing thousands of items the crew would need to run their planned battery of scientific and medical experiments. They were also tasked with performing a series of observations of the Sun, Earth, and the comet Kohoutek that would be passing by. They had four planned spacewalks that would total a little under a day in length.
But the Skylab 4 crew had a harder time managing their demanding schedule than their predecessors. Perhaps because it was an all-rookie crew; Skylab 2 had been commanded by Pete Conrad and Skylab 3 by Al Bean, both Apollo 12 moonwalkers familiar with grueling flight schedules.
Long work periods and seemingly endless lists of tasks took their toll on the rookie astronauts. The crew found themselves exhausted, falling badly behind schedule. NASA was pushing them too hard, they said, and they couldn’t keep working such long hours. Ground crews in mission control disagreed. They felt that the astronauts were complaining needlessly, that they should be working through their meal times and rest days to catch up. It was expensive having a crew in orbit for 84 days, and NASA intended to get all the work out of the men it could manage.
About six weeks into the flight, a few days before New Year's Eve, the Skylab 4 crew hit their breaking point. They announced an unscheduled day off, turned off the communications radio, and got some rest. They spent the day relaxing and taking in the stunning views of the Earth from orbit.
None of them ever flew again.
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