Around the Earth For 59 Days

The first Skylab astronauts proved beyond a doubt that man could live and work in zero-G for as long as 28 days.

Now the space agency is about to double the challenge. This Saturday morning, Astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott and Jack Lousma are scheduled to lift off from Cape Kennedy atop a Saturn 1B rocket for the start of a bold new mission aboard the $293 million space station--a record-breaking flight of 59 days that will be the most rigorous test yet of man's ability to withstand the physical and psychological strains of prolonged space travel.

The second Skylab mission was originally scheduled for 56 days, but at week's end NASA officials decided to extend the flight by three days.

That will enable the astronauts to splash down closer to the California coast (300 nautical miles southwest of San Diego instead of the planned 1,000 miles) and reduce their long, wearying trip aboard the recovery carrier.

The launch itself will require unusual precision. If the astronauts are to rendezvous in their Apollo command ship with the 230-nautical-mile-high laboratory within the prescribed five revolutions of the earth, their lift-off cannot be delayed more than ten minutes. Otherwise, the blast-off will have to be postponed until the next day. But by then the launch "window" will, have shrunk to a mere two minutes, and it will take the astronauts two more revolutions to reach the laboratory.

The initial Skylab team had to cope with the loss of part of the ship's shielding and with a major failure in its electrical system.* By contrast, the second team should find the lab in good working order. As the countdown began last week, the only potentially serious problem reported by mission controllers was a malfunction in an attitude-control gyroscope, the second to break down so far (seven of Skylab's complement of nine gyros in the triply-redundant system are still working). The astronauts will carry up a replacement gyro. Already on board is a twin-pole awning. It is designed to replace the makeshift sunshade erected by the first crew to protect the orbital workshop's bare spot where it lost its thermal and meteoroid shielding.

Garriott and Lousma are slated to set up the new awning over the existing parasol during a space walk on the third day of the mission. If everything goes well, a second and third space walk will be undertaken later in the mission to collect and replace film mounted on the space station's solar telescope array.

Other equipment to be carried up to Skylab should help make life easier for the astronauts during their long sojourn in space. The list includes razor blades, toothpaste and ketchup (to replace supplies ruined by the excess heat during the first mission), chest, leg and back exercisers to help maintain muscle tone, extra garbage bags, a new Polaroid SX-70 camera for instant pictures, a specimen-measuring device to replace the broken one in Skylab's toilet, and even a fresh supply of underwear. They will also take up some new biological experiments, including one that was suggested to NASA by a high school student that involves a pair of spiders named Anita and Arabella (purpose: to see whether they can spin their normal webs in conditions of weightlessness). Indeed, the Apollo command module will be so crammed with gear that on lift-off it will probably be within ounces of its maximum permissible weight of 1 3,500 Ibs.

* NASA investigators concluded last week that the reason the shielding ripped free during launch -- and subsequently carried off one of the lab's solar panels and jammed another -- was that air pressure built up under the thin, loosely fitting aluminum skin. That might have been avoided if openings at the aft end of the shield had been closed, the investigators said, but the different engineering and manufacturing teams involved in the project failed to consult with each other about the shield's potential shortcomings.

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