Picture Portfolio of Skylab 1: The Longest Flight

While coping successfully with one crisis after another during their 28-day stay in space, Skylab 1 Astronauts Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin still had time to act like ordinary tourists. Clicking away with their Nikons, Hasselblads and automatic cameras, they took 50,000 pictures --more than any space travelers before them. Last week, as they returned to Houston for continued postflight medical examinations and debriefings, NASA began releasing their splendid shots, some of the best ever taken in space.

The pictures ranged from those of the astronauts engaged in everyday activities inside their cavernous spacecraft --showering, eating and undergoing medical tests in zero-G --to dramatic exterior views of Skylab itself. One particularly stunning photograph, taken from the Apollo command ship after the astronauts left Skylab, shows the 80-ton space station circling the cloud-covered earth. The makeshift sunshade, erected by the astronauts after the loss of the original shielding during launch, and the single surviving solar wing on the orbital workshop section are clearly visible. The photographs also offer a close-up view of the damaged equipment, including the pesky aluminum strap from the lost shielding that kept the solar wing locked in place until the astronauts freed it during a space walk. These frames should be particularly valuable to space-agency technicians as they prepare for a second Skylab crew to board the $293 million station for the late-July start of a 56-day stay in space.

Back in Houston, the Skylab 1 astronauts found that their own mission was far from over. They were allowed to meet only with a limited number of officials (who wore face masks in their presence). They also had to continue eating the same regimen of frozen, canned and dehydrated foods that they had aboard Skylab. Though they were allowed to go home to their wives in the evenings, their children had to move away from home temporarily. The 18 days of semi-isolation were ordered by doctors to shield the astronauts from the effects of earthly germs; any chance infection could be confused with bodily changes caused by the prolonged weightlessness, and thus hinder the intensive effort to pinpoint the physical consequences of living in zero-G.

The quarantine was hardly airtight. During their meeting with President Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev at the Western White House, the astronauts balked at the orders of NASA doctors and did not wear face masks. "If we catch a cold," joked Conrad, "it would be an honor to catch a cold from you two gentlemen." Brezhnev joined in the banter by asking Conrad to take the two leaders up to Skylab. Nixon cheerfully nodded his assent.

At week's end, NASA doctors said that they were quite pleased with the health of the astronauts and expressed doubt that any of them would suffer any permanent damage (though the medical tests will continue for some time). In fact, the doctors discovered at least one positive effect of long space flight.

Though the astronauts were queasy in their first hours back on earth, they have since developed a higher than usual resistance to motion sickness. The curious phenomenon is apparently connected with the prolonged exposure to zero-G of the balance mechanism in the inner ear--a tolerance that the doctors believe will soon disappear.

Like their predecessors in space, the Skylab astronauts did experience some weakening of their heart and other muscles, caused by 28 days of weightlessness. While most of the Apollo astronauts recovered their strength about 48 hours after their trips to the moon (which averaged about eleven days), the Skylab crew--notably Physician-Astronaut Kerwin --took a few days longer. But doctors said that the delay was expectable. "They are in better condition than we had hoped for," reported Cardiologist Robert L. Johnson.

In a meeting with the press, the astronauts were enthusiastic about their experience in space. "It was a continuous and pleasant surprise how easy it was to live in zero-gravity, and how well you feel," said Kerwin, who attributed his own "dizziness" after splashdown to simple seasickness. Added Conrad: "I'd say very definitely that the average man or woman could fly in space." The only major change urged by the astronauts for future missions is an increase in the daily program of exercises from 30 minutes to perhaps an hour and a half to help maintain muscle tone. Did they miss anything in particular? Aside from female companionship, said Weitz, "I guess I missed cold beer most of all."

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