Science Cafe - Fifty Years Since Skylab, Our First Home in Space

For April, join David S.F. Portree for a talk on moon landings, lunar research, and Flagstaff! David S. F. Portree is an award-winning science writer, historian, educator, and archivist. The Apollo missions to the Moon inspired him to become a writer; in the 1990s, he became a writer and historian at NASA. After moving to Arizona in 2000, David worked for Lowell Observatory and the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Team at ASU.

Skylab started as the Apollo Applications Program, which was meant to reuse Apollo spacecraft and rockets for the benefit of people on Earth, so it really was Apollo’s child. It was also the first place astronauts lived in space for months at a time — it had bedrooms, a kitchen, a pantry, a dining room, a bathroom, an entertainment center, a garage, a gym, an entry foyer, a big picture window with a great view, a dumpster, a tool shop, and work areas. David’s talk will focus on Skylab’s origins and development, describe the Skylab station, describe the three missions that visited Skylab with emphasis on the first, which included Flagstaffian Paul Weitz, talk about what Skylab accomplished, and connect Skylab with the International Space Station. David will also describe