WEBVTT - TechStuff Visits Space Stations 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.000 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.440 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:20.680 and a love of all things tech. And just in 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.200 case this sounds different, it's because I'm once again recording 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.000 on my own equipment, but in the office studio. So 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.200 just in case you think it sounds weird, and it's 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.199 not just me, that's why. But we recently did a 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.040 history of the evolution of the space suit and how 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.800 countries like Russia and the United States dedicated millions of 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.200 dollars in research and development to create suits that would 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.239 help astronauts and cosmonauts survive the rigors of traveling to 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.760 space and then back to Earth. I mentioned the International 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.320 Space Station a couple of times in that series and thought, 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.680 you know, I haven't really done any episodes talking about 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.520 space stations or how the I s S came to 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.760 be and what folks do up there as they whizz 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.039 around the Earth at four point seven six miles per 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.840 second or seven point six six kilometers per second for 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.880 you know, everyone who's not in the US. And I 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.319 figured that it was more than past time to cover 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.920 these sort of things, because you know, the modules that 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.720 make up the I S S were originally rated for 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.560 a fifteen year lifespan, but the first modules for the 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.920 International Space Station launched in So if you do your math, 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.679 that means that puts the fifteen year market two thousand thirteen, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.080 and we are well past that as it stands. There's 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.000 hope that we could see the I S S continue 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.680 to operate for another few years to hit that thirty 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.760 year mark, but recently we've seen some claims that suggest 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.400 the end might need to come a little earlier than 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.800 that if we want to avert catastrophe, because parts of 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.400 the I S S are a little worse for where 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.440 But of course this is tech stuff that means we 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.040 have to dive into a lot of history before we 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.160 get to the I S S. In fact, spoiler alert, 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.359 we won't be touching on the International Space Station in 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.320 this episode. We'll be getting that in a later one. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.160 So the International Space Station was not the first space 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:22.600 station in orbit. That honor goes to the first Saliot 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.120 space Station, and there were multiple of those, and those 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.280 came from the then Soviet Union. Now earlier this year 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.520 we passed the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Saliot 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.239 one that got off the ground literally on April nineteenth, 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.760 ninety one. Now, this space station is important for quite 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.800 a few reasons. Not only was it the first space station, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.640 but elements in the Saliot would continue down through a 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.720 line of different space station and spacecraft designs out of 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.200 the U. S. S R, and then later out of 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.120 Russia to find their way into components that are now 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.440 part of the International Space Station. So it's all going 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.200 to tie together in the end. But first, let's talk 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:14.720 about Salute, which means salute. Surprisingly enough, it got its 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.240 start in the nineteen sixties with Soviet scientists discussing the 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:24.440 possibility of developing a space station specifically for military purposes. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.840 So this project had the name alamas A l m 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.880 ay Z, which means diamond in Russian and I'm sure 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.280 I'm mispronouncing it. My apologies to all you Russian speakers 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.160 out there. So the real purpose of the Alma's stations 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:47.320 were to serve as reconnaissance operations, so spying. In other words. Now, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.119 generally speaking, it's not incredibly wise to advertise that you're 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.080 engaged in spying. It's kind of defeats the purpose. So 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:01.040 the Soviets decided that they would mask that and they 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:06.320 would launch a series of civilian space stations UH specifically 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.800 dedicated to scientific research, and then they would just kind 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.840 of hide the military ones in the mix. So some 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:20.520 of those stations would genuinely be about scientific exploration and experimentation, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.119 some of them were more about peeping on the neighbors. Also. 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.120 The original plan was for the Alma's stations to be 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.320 modular in design, but the success of the Apollo eleven 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.880 moon landing in nineteen sixty nine spurred the Soviets to 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:41.119 move up their timeline and that necessitated a change in plans. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:45.159 So instead of going with the modular Alma's space station, 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.719 which would mean that you would have to launch components 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.599 in separate launches, and then crews would need to go 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.400 up into space and assemble those modules together to create 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.880 a space station, the Soviets decided to instead rely on 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.960 a Salute design and all in one space station that 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.760 could be launched fully constructed into space. The first Saliot 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.480 was one of the civilian missions, so not one of 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.800 the secret military ones. UH. Saliot two, three, and five 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.880 were all military projects, so they were really mixed in 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.080 there also, Quickside notes Saliot to suffered a catastrophic failure 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.600 just two weeks of it being launched into orbit. The 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:33.159 station depressurized after a collision with a part of the 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.160 launch vehicle system and ended up moving lower in orbit 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.360 until it re entered the our atmosphere and broke apart. Now, 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:45.240 fortunately there were no cosmonauts aboard because no Soviet crew 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:50.919 had yet visited the launched station, which meant that no 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.920 lives were lost as a result of this incident. So 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.520 to visit a Saliot station, in order to get there, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.600 crew of cosmonauts would launch inside a Soyu's space capsule 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.839 talked about those in the space suit episodes, and this 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.520 capsule would be you know, attached to a launch vehicle, 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.560 a rocket in other words, and the Soyus capsule would 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.880 get launched into orbit and that would be on a 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:23.719 trajectory to dock with the Salut station using a new 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.760 probe and drogue docking system. So the probe is the 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.960 part that you know, docks inside the drogue. And it 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.560 was originally going to have the name Zaria, the original 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.400 original space station was. In fact, it had that name 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.000 so long the engineers actually painted the name on the spacecraft. 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.039 It had the name Zaria on it. That means dawn 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.440 by the way. However, for several reasons, and they were 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.320 all pretty valid ones, the Soviets decided that they needed 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.960 to rename the spacecraft, so they renamed Saliot. But there 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.560 wasn't enough time to give the space station a new 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.920 paint jobs, so while it was named Saliott, it had 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.359 the name Zaria painted on it. Also, the development of 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.720 the Saliot station had some drama attached to it, and 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.360 I'm gonna have to do a full episode about the 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:19.200 Soviet era space program to talk more about not just 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.560 the program and the technology used and the goals of 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.400 the program, but also the rivalries that existed within the 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.760 program itself. So the guy who designed the Soya's spacecraft 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.600 was Seragei Korolov, and the guy who came up with 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.400 the Alma's Reconnaissance station, which eventually got merged into the 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:43.920 Saliot program was Vladimir Chellamy and Chelloman also designed the 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:48.080 Transport Supply Ship or the t k S that was 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.840 designed to resupply the Alma's space station. And these two, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.560 these two Soviets had some pretty intense battles within the 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.280 Soviet space program, and each attempted to level ridge various 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.160 political favors in order to push their own projects ahead 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.040 of the other. So I will have to do a 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.560 full episode about that at some point. It's pretty fascinating. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:13.000 But let's talk about the first Saliot space station briefly. 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.360 The main part of the station was cylindrical. It measured 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.400 forty eight feet long or about fourteen point six meters, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.520 and it was a stepped cylinder, so in other words, 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.440 like it wasn't a smooth cylinder. There were sections of 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.800 the cylinder that had uh different diameters, right, so you 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.600 might have a few meters of of space that are 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.800 one diameter and the next few are different. So at 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.239 its widest section, which was the rear of the spacecraft, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.439 it measured thirteen point nine feet or four point to 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.880 five meters in diameter, and inside there was around three 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.440 thousand five cubic feet of volume for the cosmonauts to 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.600 live and work in, and as a NASA page on 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.000 the topic puts it, it was about the size of 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.559 a large in ground swimming pool. Inside there though not 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.360 the shape, but you know, same sort of space. The 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.880 station solar arrays that collected energy from the Sun to 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.120 power the station were really important, right. They were using 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:13.480 solar power to provide electrical power to the station, and 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.800 it also had a lot of scientific equipment aboard, enough 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.800 that the equipment weighed two thousand, six hundred pounds here 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:25.240 on Earth or just under one thousand. It had antenna 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.360 to allow it to transmit messages back to Earth. Very important, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.880 and the cosmonauts were meant to inhabit the station, conduct 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:36.080 observations and experiments using the various equipment and telescopes aboard 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.560 the station, and generally pushed science forward by leagues. Heck, 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.040 the cosmonauts themselves were technically experiments because no one was 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.040 really sure what the long term effects of a prolonged 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.160 mission in space might be on the human body. Uh. 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.800 And of course there were the military operations as well, 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:59.040 where cosmonauts would be conducting reconnaissance missions rather than scientific ones. Now, 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.560 the station include did a refrigerator and a food warmer. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.280 Cosmonauts wore special suits that provided resistance to major muscle 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.439 groups in order to you know, exercise, and the reason 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.000 for that was to fight against the tendency for cosmonauts 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.480 to lose significant muscle mass while just maneuvering through a 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:21.480 microgravity environment. The resistance meant that just moving around would 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.959 require a bit more exertion than normal, and the station 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.360 also had a treadmill as well as elastic restraints to 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.079 hold you onto the treadmill so that the cosmonauts could 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.360 take exercise. For the same reasons, you know, you wanted 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.720 to fight against things like muscle loss and bone density 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.400 loss as best you could. Unfortunately, when the first Saliot 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.880 space station innered orbit in April nineteen seventy one, the 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.800 protective cover for the scientific instruments stayed in place rather 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.600 than jettisoning off from the station as was planned, and 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:55.880 that meant that a lot of those experiments just couldn't 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.880 happen because the instruments were still covered by a casing 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.679 you couldn't remove. Still, the station was habitable, and on 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:09.959 April the Saya's ten space capsule launched, carrying three cosmonauts 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.760 headed off to move into the station. Only there was 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.400 an issue. The probe and drogue apparatus failed to create 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:21.440 a good docking seal, so there was no hard lock 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.360 with the space station, so the crew of the capsule 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.560 could not make the transfer over into the space station, 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.800 so they were forced to ultimately return home without having 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.920 gone into the space station. But then a subsequent crew 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.880 aboard the next capsule, Soya's eleven, which had a newly 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.719 designed probe to interlocked, interlocked with the drogue mechanism on 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.120 the space station that launched on June six of that year. 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.760 So the first saliot did eventually get a crew, it 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.880 just took a couple of tries. That crew stayed aboard 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.680 the station for twenty four days. That was a record 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.400 for the amount of time spent in space at that point, 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.280 and tragically that crew perished on their way back to Earth. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.600 In fact, from what I understand, these are the only people, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:14.400 at least acknowledged anyway, who have died in space. There's 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.440 been a lot of accidents related to space missions, but 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.079 most of them have happened within the atmosphere of Earth. 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:27.000 Um this one did not. The Saya's capsule de pressurized 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.800 and tragically all three crew member died as a result, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.480 And in fact, this was the tragedy that would change 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.080 the way the Soviet Union approached the Sayers capsule and 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.439 space suits. If you remember from the space suit episodes, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.760 the Soviets decided for a while that they just would 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.920 do away with pressure suits and space suits for any 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.920 missions that didn't require extra vehicular activities, that is, spacewalks. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.040 But after the disaster of Saya's eleven, the Soviets then 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.120 redesigned the Saya's capsule and it would only carry a 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.920 crew of two cosmonauts instead of three, and that would 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.000 allow enough space inside the capsule for both of those 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:10.200 cosmonauts to wear pressurized space suits during launch and landing 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.280 to protect against the sort of thing and to at 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.240 least give them a chance. As for that first space station, 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.440 it remained in orbit for one days, and the redesign 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.160 of the Sayus capsule meant that no other crew was 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.719 going to be able to visit Salut before it was 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.679 no longer habitable, and so the Soviets chose to de 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.880 orbit the space station so that it would re enter 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.560 their atmosphere and break apart over the Pacific Ocean. So 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.240 only one crew actually got to the first Saliot space station, 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.640 and we already mentioned that the second Saliot space station, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.800 the first of the military ones, experienced catastrophic failure, again 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.880 fortunately without anyone inside it, but then the Soviets launched 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.880 lots of other ones, and the third space station went 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.040 up just a few days before the United States was 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.880 to launch its own first space station, and we'll get 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.120 to that in a little bit. But anyway, that third 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.160 one also failed to achieve orbit and would receive the 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:13.559 name Cosmos five five seven, And information on that is 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.240 kind of limited. The Soviets were incredibly secretive with their 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:23.000 space program, and so finding reliable sources that talk about 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.720 hard facts is difficult. You get a lot of you 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:28.680 get a lot of speculation, and you get a lot 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.080 of reports that may or may not be reliable. In fact, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:36.520 NASA just described this as quote an unmanned Soya's type 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.240 vehicle end quote, and that the funding agency is quote 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:45.000 unknown end quote. But then in parentheses behind that says USSR. 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.400 So I guess kind of known. Anyway, The actual Salut 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.960 three mission, which was one of the military missions disguised 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.160 as a civilian one, reportedly included the testing of a 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.560 twenty three millimeter gun attached to the stage sation so 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:06.760 like um like a conventional gun actually as part of 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.920 a station weaponry. Now there's very little information on this, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:15.160 so I hesitate to relay any stories about it. And besides, 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.880 a lot of stuff has actually contradictory reports, so it's 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.400 hard for me to say what happened because there are 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.600 accounts that contradict each other. But yeah, at least according 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.360 to some stories, this was the first spacecraft to be weaponized, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.280 and at least some of the stories indicate that the 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.120 Soviets did test fire it while the space station was 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.280 an orbit, though supposedly not when any crew were actually 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.560 aboard the space station, So the command to fire the 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.680 gun was given from the ground. The way this gun 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.840 was on the station. By the way, you couldn't move 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.120 the gun to point at targets. You would actually have 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.840 to reorient the entire station to point at whatever it 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.520 was you're going to fire at. Uh, don't have much 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.240 more information about that. Got a lot of speculation though. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.520 In total, there were seven official Saliot space stations, but 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.800 nine attempts. The Cosmos five five seven was one of 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.280 the failed attempts, and another one was called the do 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.400 OS two space station. Both of those failed to achieve orbits, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.120 so they didn't get the Saliot designation. Then again, as 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.440 I mentioned, the Saliot to space station achieved orbit that 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.560 had to be de orbited within two weeks due to malfunctions. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.880 Saliot six and seven were of a different design than 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.080 their predecessors. The older Saliot stations had a single docking 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.880 port at one end of the cylinder, and that's where 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.840 the Soya's capsule would connect to the station, But six 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.440 and seven had two docking ports, one on either end, 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.200 so the Soyas capsule could dock at one side of 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.680 the cylinder and the other side could serve as a 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.440 docking point for resupply ships. In addition, it made it 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.640 possible for a second Soyas capsule to dock with the station, 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.760 so you could have two crews aboard the station at 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.080 one each with you know, two cosmonauts, and they can 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.200 meet at the space station simultaneously. This allowed the Soviets 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.439 to have some guest cosmonauts go on trips to the 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.280 space stations in orbit. The cargo ships called Progress were 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.359 automated and they would dock with new supply so there 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.520 was no crew aboard these, it was just you know, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.280 resupply ships. These were all important steps towards creating the 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.120 next generation of space stations. Now the first six Saliot 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.240 space stations launched in the nineteen seventies. Most of them 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.920 re entered the R's atmosphere just a few months after 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.560 they had launched, so they didn't stay up there for 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.159 very long. Saliot five stuck around a little bit longer. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.399 It launched in June nineteen seventy six and stayed up 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.080 until August of nineteen seventy seven, so it was up 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.119 for more than a year. Saliot six went up in 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.760 September nineteen seventy seven and re entered Earth's atmosphere in 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:53.879 July of nineteen eighty two, so it was up there 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.840 for about five years. Then the final mission launched in 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:03.680 April nineteen eighty two and stayed up until February, so 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.800 nearly a decade. Pretty impressive for an early space station design. 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.480 The civilian stations all had a core module that had 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.920 the designation d O S, so that d O S 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.080 two was one of those. The military stations had a 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.560 core modular designation as h O P S. The d 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.880 S design would then extend beyond the saliott era into 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.480 the next phase of the Soviet Union's space program, which 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.840 would include the Mirror, which spoiler alert, we also won't 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.800 get to in this episode. But when we come back, 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.280 we'll switch over to talk about sky Lab for a bit, 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:49.600 but first let's take a break. So, the Soviets were 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.160 launching space stations in nineteen one, and it would take 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.359 a couple of years before the United States was ready 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.800 to follow suit. But we've got some overlap that we 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.080 need to talk about, because obviously the stuff isn't just happening, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.399 you know, one after the other. There's a lot of 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.520 stuff happening at the same time. And actually we need 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.600 to backtrack as far as the late nineteen fifties and 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.600 the scientist Werner von Braun. His is a complicated history, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:17.840 which is a pretty nice way of saying he was 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.840 once a Nazi, or at least he worked for the 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.680 Nazis during World War Two developing long range rocket based weaponry, 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:27.760 and he was one of the engineers responsible for the 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.840 infamous V two rocket. Some accounts suggest that he wasn't 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:36.400 particularly sympathetic to the Nazis, but rather worked under them 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.360 because he had little choice unless he was to abandon 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.600 his life's pursuit of engineering. And so essentially he was saying, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:44.639 I had to work for them. They were the ones 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.040 who were letting me do science. Now I find that 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.920 explanation somewhat unconvincing and certainly not satisfying, but at any rate, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.399 Von Brown, along with more than fift hundred other German 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.679 engineers and scientists, where they were all secretly away to 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.920 America after World War Two as part of Operation paper Clip. 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.399 So while the United States and the rest of the 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.680 world we're you know, seeking out Nazi officers and trying 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.200 to hold them accountable for various war crimes up through 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.760 World War two and and after uh, the scientists and 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.440 engineers were kind of spared that because they were seen 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.160 as being useful assets, so they were relocated to America 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.159 to work for us instead. That's also a fascinating story, 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.879 that entire story of Operation paper Clip. It's one I 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.840 should probably do a full episode on and maybe I'll 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:37.840 get some of the lads from the stuff they don't 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:39.639 want you to know to come and join me for 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.639 that one. Anyway, one of von Braun's ideas that you 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.439 know once he made the transition over to America was 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.040 to use a multi stage rocket in order to travel 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.439 to the Moon. But he also had the idea of 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.199 using the upper stage of the rocket to convert it 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.520 in orbit to serve as a scientific laboratory. The upper 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.679 stage would hold propellant during launch, so it would be 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.280 part of your launch vehicle. But then a subsequent visiting 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.480 crew could go to that, uh, that stage of the 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.120 rocket which would be in orbit, and then they could 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.479 vent any remaining propellant out of that. And it's an 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:21.080 airtight container, so they could then fill the container with 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:25.720 breathable oxygen and convert it into an orbiting laboratory. He 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.280 called this proposal Horizon, and it would turn out that 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.320 sky Lab, the United States first space station, would kind 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.760 of follow this design. Now largely this was thanks to 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.919 Van Brown advocating for this approach, as he anticipated he 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:42.640 and his team wouldn't have a whole lot of work 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.959 to do once the Apollo missions completed, and you know, 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.480 guy has got to get paid. So in the late 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.240 nineteen sixties, NASA began to consider, and not for the 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.879 first time, the potential for establishing a space station in 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.760 orbit around Earth for a more lasting presence in space. 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.399 The Apollo program was proving to be a success after 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.119 an initial catastrophe with Apollo one, and you had the 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.200 first astronauts landing on the Moon in nineteen sixty nine, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.080 so the agency really began to look ahead while still 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.680 pursuing additional lunar missions. The Soviets were planning out how 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:24.000 to combine military operations with a civilian space station program, 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:27.080 but NASA was looking to create a more persistent presence 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.200 in orbit, and that became the origin of the sky 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:35.760 Lab project. Now, the plan originally was to launch sky 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:41.399 Lab as a wet works station. That means following the 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:45.560 style of von Brown, having a multi stage rocket in 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.399 which all the stages are holding propellant and one of 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:54.320 them you then convert into a workstation. However, that changed 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.119 for a couple of different reasons. One is that NASA 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:01.760 originally had plans for additional Apollo missions after Apollo seventeen, 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.600 but those got scrapped, and it meant that effectively NASA 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:10.640 had a couple of extra Saturn five rockets, so they 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.080 could then launch sky Lab on a Saturn five rocket, 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:15.600 one of the ones that was originally going to be 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:18.240 part of the Apollo program, and thus they could have 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.680 a special payload attached to this rocket that would hold 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.360 the scientific instruments and a solar observatory, as well as 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:29.240 an orbiting workstation where astronauts would actually live and work, 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:34.600 so the upper stage of this launch vehicle, the S 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:40.360 four B stage, would become the orbital workstation. Again. Originally 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:42.679 the plan was this was gonna be a wet workshop. 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.840 They were going to pump out or vent out the propellant, 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.920 the extra propellant inside of it and then converted into 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:52.439 a workstation. But as it would turn out, by the 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:56.520 time it came to launch, the plans had changed, so 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:59.720 the S four B stage didn't need to hold any 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:01.520 propel and at all, so it could be just a 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:06.320 dry workshop, which dramatically simplifies things. Uh, there would be 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.879 no need to do that conversion stage while in orbit. 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:12.760 You could actually set everything out here on Earth. And 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.680 the reason that was possible is that the Saturn five 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.119 launch vehicle, which again was not originally intended to be 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:22.639 a sky Lab launch vehicle, is powerful enough with just 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:26.800 the earlier stages to get the payload into orbit without 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:31.359 the need for the Saturn four B stage to also 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:34.879 be part of the launch vehicle. So the station itself 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:38.320 would have lots of different scientific instruments aboard. A large 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:41.880 focus was on the study of the Sun and tightly 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:46.399 wrapped around the S four B stage was this micro 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:50.480 meteoroid shield. Uh. This shield was meant to do two 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:55.520 major things to protect the the space station against micro meteoroids, 0:24:55.640 --> 0:25:00.200 so tiny particles traveling at intense speeds that could would 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:03.040 cause massive damage if they were to collide with the 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.560 space station. But was also supposed to be a heat 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:09.800 shield because since this laboratory was meant to study the Sun, 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:13.080 it was going to be exposed to solar radiation and 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:15.800 it could get pretty warm out there if you didn't 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:18.720 have a way of you know, throwing some shade, I guess. 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.080 And this was all supposed to deploy once the station 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:25.320 achieved orbit. The idea was that the sky Lab would 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:28.920 get into orbit, it would deploy its solar arrays, and 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:34.800 it would deploy its micro meteoroid shield. That did not happen. 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:37.280 See I used words like it was it was to 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.359 deploy and it and that the solar panels were to 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:44.879 provide electricity. Because these things did not go smoothly when 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:47.800 it came time for Skylab to actually launch, which was 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:52.800 in May nine, three two years after the first Salut 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:57.960 station went into orbit. So during launch, the micro meteoroid 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:01.679 shield was damaged. It became dislodged and it tore away 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:05.720 from the spacecraft. It also damaged one of the solar panels, 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:10.080 which subsequently also tore away from the spacecraft. So you 0:26:10.119 --> 0:26:13.800 only had one main solar panel left behind. I mean 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:16.640 you had one, had some for the solar observatory, which 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:21.760 was part of the scientific instruments, but the main orbiting 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:25.399 workstation only had one solar panel left, and it was 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:29.000 partially jammed, so it was unable to fully extend to 0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:31.760 the way it was supposed to be. The shield, like 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:33.919 I said, was meant to provide protection not just against 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:37.320 micro meteoroids but also heat. So without it, the station 0:26:37.400 --> 0:26:41.399 started to reach temperatures of fifty two degrees celsius, and 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:45.280 that's about a d degrees fahrenheit. That's way too hot 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:48.320 for astronauts to take up residents for any sort of 0:26:48.359 --> 0:26:52.520 extended stay. The first Skylab mission with a crew was 0:26:52.560 --> 0:26:56.000 called sky Lab two. This gets a little confusing because, 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.000 I mean, if you look at the Soviets and the 0:26:58.080 --> 0:27:03.280 Saliot missions, those numbers like salut to sell at three 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:06.560 that refers to separate space stations, right, Each of those 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:10.280 are space stations that either got into orbit or suffered 0:27:10.480 --> 0:27:13.879 a failure. But sky Lab, when we talk about Skylab 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:17.040 to Skylab three and sky Lab four, those are just 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:21.359 missions that were going to the one sky Lab station. 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:24.560 There was only ever one sky Lab, so when you're 0:27:24.600 --> 0:27:27.600 sky Lab two, that's referring to the mission that went 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:32.280 to the station. It brought the first three astronauts up 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.040 to the Skylab station, and obviously one of the top 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:38.760 priorities for that mission was to repair the space station 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:41.720 after it's troublesome launch and try to get it into 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:45.960 working order. Several days had passed since it had launched, 0:27:46.240 --> 0:27:49.480 and there were already some big issues that the astronauts 0:27:49.480 --> 0:27:53.359 had to address. First of all was that problem with 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:58.480 the heat so they installed an ingenious little thing to 0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:02.720 fix it, and um it was good because there was 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:04.879 a real fear that the entire mission was going to 0:28:04.960 --> 0:28:07.800 have to get scrapped because of the launch problems that 0:28:07.880 --> 0:28:10.520 had happened. But the crew of Skylab two were able 0:28:10.560 --> 0:28:15.600 to install a new sun shield of parasol. Essentially, it 0:28:15.680 --> 0:28:19.159 was a temporary fix. A later Skylab mission would install 0:28:19.280 --> 0:28:22.240 a more permanent heat shield, but this was like a 0:28:22.240 --> 0:28:24.879 little parasol, like just like you would hold up you know, 0:28:25.000 --> 0:28:26.960 if you were a Victorian and you wanted to take 0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:30.600 a stroll in the park, and they installed it into 0:28:30.720 --> 0:28:34.760 the station, which kept the station at a more tolerable temperature. 0:28:35.080 --> 0:28:37.840 The crew also made repairs to the exterior of the 0:28:37.840 --> 0:28:39.880 space station and a couple of e v A s 0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:44.520 extra vehicular activities spacewalks. In other words, they unjammed the 0:28:44.600 --> 0:28:49.000 remaining main solar panel. And the duration of Skylab two's 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:53.480 mission aboard the space station was twenty eight days, so 0:28:54.240 --> 0:28:59.160 they were up there for four weeks. Uh, pretty phenomenal. 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:02.560 Then you had two other Skylab missions, he had Skylab 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:05.560 three and sky Lab four. Those would see crews spend 0:29:05.640 --> 0:29:09.480 fifty nine days with Skylab three and eighty four days 0:29:09.760 --> 0:29:13.400 for sky Lab four. Pretty phenomenal. And Uh, here's a 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:16.600 cool personal connection that I just thought I would throw 0:29:16.600 --> 0:29:19.920 in there. One of the astronauts in the sky Lab 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:25.280 three mission was Owen Garriott, a scientist astronaut. He was 0:29:25.400 --> 0:29:28.200 up there for that fifty nine day period. As I said, 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:31.360 he would later go on a second space mission in 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:35.920 nine three he was aboard the space Shuttle Columbia. And 0:29:36.120 --> 0:29:39.920 he also was the father of Richard Garriott. Then they 0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:43.040 might not mean anything to you unless you're a big 0:29:43.040 --> 0:29:46.240 computer game fan like computer role playing game fan. Because 0:29:46.320 --> 0:29:49.200 Richard Garriott is also known as Lord British. He is 0:29:49.240 --> 0:29:52.200 the guy who created the Ultimate series of computer games. 0:29:52.720 --> 0:29:56.200 He's also one of just a few civilians who ever 0:29:56.280 --> 0:29:59.480 got to visit the International Space Station. I'll talk about 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:03.240 that in another episode. I used to chat with Richard 0:30:03.240 --> 0:30:05.640 Garriott at conventions. I met him and like we knew 0:30:05.640 --> 0:30:08.160 each other a little bit and would talk. I wouldn't 0:30:08.200 --> 0:30:11.000 say we were friends, because we were never that close, 0:30:11.040 --> 0:30:13.760 but we were friendly with one another. Uh. And that 0:30:14.000 --> 0:30:16.320 is as far as my personal connection to sky Lab 0:30:16.560 --> 0:30:18.960 or the I S S goes, But it's still be 0:30:19.040 --> 0:30:22.920 kind of cool, I think anyway. So the first mission 0:30:22.960 --> 0:30:26.360 with a crew launched in May seventy three. The final 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:30.960 mission with a crew returned to Earth in February ninety four, 0:30:31.600 --> 0:30:34.680 so you're looking at less than a year for all 0:30:34.760 --> 0:30:38.840 the Skylab missions. However, Skylab itself stayed up in orbit 0:30:39.000 --> 0:30:42.320 for quite some time, longer than that. NASA actually hoped 0:30:42.600 --> 0:30:45.080 to be able to boost sky Lab to a higher 0:30:45.240 --> 0:30:49.200 orbit and to send Space Shuttle missions there and extend 0:30:49.360 --> 0:30:55.960 its mission even longer. However, the spatial program ran behind schedule, 0:30:56.440 --> 0:31:00.240 and sky Lab ultimately ran out of time. Increased overer 0:31:00.280 --> 0:31:04.280 activity and a deteriorating orbit meant that sky Labs days 0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:07.120 were numbered. It was going to re enter Earth's atmosphere. 0:31:07.160 --> 0:31:08.840 There was no way to avoid it, because there was 0:31:08.880 --> 0:31:12.680 no way to push it further out into orbit. In July, 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:18.200 sky Lab re entered or atmosphere. NASA had previously attempted 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:21.440 to adjust sky Labs orientation. This wasn't an effort to 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:25.400 kind of try to steer it toward like an ocean, 0:31:25.440 --> 0:31:28.920 so it wouldn't fall over a populated area. There was 0:31:28.960 --> 0:31:32.560 a real concern and in some places, like a media circus, 0:31:33.280 --> 0:31:36.640 regarding where this space station might fall, and that it 0:31:36.640 --> 0:31:40.360 could potentially you know, kill someone, or cause massive damage 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:43.720 or or collide with, like, you know, a population center. 0:31:44.200 --> 0:31:47.560 A NASA study indicated that the agency itself was concerned 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:51.000 about such an outcome. Now as it happened, the station 0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:54.000 did not hit the ocean as intended, at least not 0:31:54.160 --> 0:31:56.320 all of it. Some parts of it hit the Indian Ocean, 0:31:57.160 --> 0:32:00.800 but it broke apart in Earth's atmosphere much lower than 0:32:00.840 --> 0:32:04.840 anyone expected. Actually, it's it remained intact far longer than 0:32:04.880 --> 0:32:08.600 people thought it would, and pieces of it hit a 0:32:08.760 --> 0:32:12.920 largely unpopulated region of Western Australia. Uh and a lot 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:16.000 of folks retrieve pieces of sky Lab and put them 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:18.240 on display. I think that was even in like a 0:32:18.320 --> 0:32:22.080 Miss Universe pageant or something. But yeah, crazy stuff. So 0:32:23.080 --> 0:32:26.000 let's talk about some of the tech aboard sky Lab 0:32:26.400 --> 0:32:29.880 and what it was doing of there. So the parameters 0:32:29.920 --> 0:32:32.960 of the Skylab mission were to quote, observe the Earth 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.080 to study natural resources and the environment, observe the Sun 0:32:37.360 --> 0:32:41.080 to study high energy solar activity, study the effects of 0:32:41.120 --> 0:32:44.560 weightlessness on the human body and assess crew adaptation to 0:32:44.640 --> 0:32:50.160 long duration spaceflight, study materials processing in microgravity, and perform 0:32:50.240 --> 0:32:54.920 experiments submitted by students for a classroom in space. Much 0:32:55.000 --> 0:32:59.320 of the scientific instrumentation aboard sky Lab was optical, which 0:32:59.360 --> 0:33:03.480 means tell Us hopes and related cameras and sensors. Chief 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:07.200 among these were the instruments attached to the Apollo Telescope 0:33:07.320 --> 0:33:10.440 Mount or a t M. This major part of sky 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:13.640 Lab had an octagonal structure that measured three point four 0:33:13.760 --> 0:33:18.080 meters across and four point four meters long, and within 0:33:18.440 --> 0:33:24.520 this octagonal structure was a cylindrical canister mounted in gimbal rings. 0:33:24.600 --> 0:33:27.960 These are rings that can turn in a different you know, 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:31.920 different planes, so that you can reorient something that's mounted 0:33:31.960 --> 0:33:34.880 inside them. The gimbal rings allowed for a range of 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:38.160 motion that let the cylinder point towards a specific region 0:33:38.240 --> 0:33:42.280 of the sun, despite you know, other things going on 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:45.360 in space. Now, this was something I had not considered. 0:33:45.680 --> 0:33:48.080 Banasa had to solve a problem in order to get 0:33:48.080 --> 0:33:50.920 all of this to work, because we know from the 0:33:51.000 --> 0:33:54.320 laws of motion that every action has an equal but 0:33:54.440 --> 0:33:58.360 opposite reaction. So when we push against the Earth, technically 0:33:58.440 --> 0:34:00.800 the Earth is pushing back. It's just most of us 0:34:00.800 --> 0:34:03.840 are not dense enough for anyone to really notice this. 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:08.280 But in microgravity, astronaut movements in the Skylab living quarters 0:34:08.280 --> 0:34:13.160 could conceivably cause enough motion to disrupt sensitive scientific experiments 0:34:13.400 --> 0:34:17.360 that required instruments to be precisely aimed at a specific 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:20.880 point on the Sun. So if you need to be 0:34:21.040 --> 0:34:24.480 focused on a very specific region of the Sun, but 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:26.720 you're worried about motion, you have to solve that problem. 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:30.840 So to mitigate this Skylab itself, the entire space station 0:34:31.520 --> 0:34:37.960 had installed three control moment gyros or cmgs to stabilize 0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:41.800 the station, and these gyros were a double gimbal mounted 0:34:42.000 --> 0:34:47.759 and electrically driven system that could keep Skylabs orientation relatively maintained. 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:51.920 And I say relatively because it wasn't quite finally tuned 0:34:52.000 --> 0:34:55.560 enough to stabilize the instruments aboard the A t M. 0:34:55.800 --> 0:34:58.680 I'll quote a NASA document about how they achieved even 0:34:58.719 --> 0:35:04.360 greater precision. Quote. This was accomplished with a solar pointing 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:09.319 control system PCs. The PCs sensed the sun's center to 0:35:09.400 --> 0:35:12.719 a few tenths of a second of arc and sent 0:35:12.920 --> 0:35:16.160 error signals into the torque motors that controlled the rotational 0:35:16.200 --> 0:35:19.960 positions of the A t M canister gimbals. Offset pointing 0:35:20.040 --> 0:35:22.719 in yaw or in pitch by steps of one point 0:35:22.800 --> 0:35:25.720 to five seconds of arc. Up to twenty four minutes 0:35:25.760 --> 0:35:29.080 of arc could be introduced by counter rotating a pair 0:35:29.120 --> 0:35:32.839 of quartz wedges placed in the solar beam incident on 0:35:32.880 --> 0:35:36.520 the yaw solar sensor, or a similar pair for pitch. 0:35:37.040 --> 0:35:40.480 These solar sensors were one of the few items inherited 0:35:40.640 --> 0:35:46.040 from the AO s oh okay h end quote right there, so, Jonathan. Here, 0:35:46.200 --> 0:35:49.160 here's a side note. The AO s O stands for 0:35:49.320 --> 0:35:53.480 Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory, which was a project that NASA 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:55.960 had planned in the nineteen sixties but ultimately had to 0:35:56.000 --> 0:35:58.640 scrap when it was clear that the tech wasn't really 0:35:58.680 --> 0:36:01.560 ready yet and the spense of the project would be 0:36:01.600 --> 0:36:04.480 way beyond NASA's budget. All right, let me get back 0:36:04.480 --> 0:36:09.160 to the quote. Control of offset pointing by rotating the 0:36:09.160 --> 0:36:12.960 prisms was accomplished by the crewman with his panel joystick. 0:36:13.440 --> 0:36:17.280 Digital indicators read out yaw and pitch to one second 0:36:17.320 --> 0:36:20.600 of arc and roll to one minute of arc. End quote. 0:36:21.280 --> 0:36:24.520 All right, that's really complicated. It gets really technical, but 0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:28.160 essentially what it's saying is that this system could correct 0:36:28.600 --> 0:36:35.160 for those motions and keep the canister relatively uh stable 0:36:35.440 --> 0:36:39.080 with regard to whatever it was aimed at. So kind 0:36:39.120 --> 0:36:42.400 of like if you think of like stabilization technologies and 0:36:42.440 --> 0:36:47.040 digital cameras, it's in concepts similar to that. So much 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:50.279 of the observational work done aboard sky Lab had to 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:53.400 do with the sun, with the instruments taking multiple images 0:36:53.440 --> 0:36:56.120 of the Sun at a specific wavelength of light. These 0:36:56.160 --> 0:36:59.879 instruments are called spectro heliographs, and they produce a mono 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:03.200 chromatic image, so you know, black and white image. So 0:37:03.239 --> 0:37:06.640 why would you focus on a specific wavelength of light. Well, 0:37:06.680 --> 0:37:09.880 it's one way to study the various elemental components of 0:37:09.920 --> 0:37:13.759 a star, as different materials will give off different wavelengths 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:16.880 of light, So by looking at which wavelengths are the 0:37:16.920 --> 0:37:19.680 most intense, you can kind of get an idea of 0:37:19.719 --> 0:37:23.520 which elements are the most plentiful and something like a 0:37:23.600 --> 0:37:28.000 star like the Sun. Onboard sky Lab, astronauts performed all 0:37:28.040 --> 0:37:32.320 sorts of scientific experiments, including medical experiments and some designed 0:37:32.320 --> 0:37:35.400 by students back on Earth. The crew also conducted some 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:39.120 observations of Earth, which was quite an achievement because the 0:37:39.200 --> 0:37:42.520 planned experiments and instruments for that purpose have been part 0:37:42.520 --> 0:37:46.880 of a previously canceled NASA project called the Apollo Applications Mission. 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:50.320 The history of NASA is one that's filled with lots 0:37:50.480 --> 0:37:53.879 of projects that were meant to be but never came 0:37:53.880 --> 0:37:58.279 to fruition or were only partially developed before they were abandoned, 0:37:58.880 --> 0:38:03.000 and it's not always possible to salvage stuff from that. 0:38:03.040 --> 0:38:06.160 But in this case, sky Lab was able to incorporate 0:38:06.320 --> 0:38:10.200 some of the plans for the Apollo Applications Mission and 0:38:10.239 --> 0:38:15.120 incorporate some Earth observation experiments with sky Lab. In all, 0:38:15.560 --> 0:38:18.759 the astronauts oversaw more than a hundred experiments, ranging from 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:22.440 using X ray and ultra violet cameras and spectrographs to 0:38:22.480 --> 0:38:26.239 stay the Sun to measuring stuff like mineral loss in 0:38:26.280 --> 0:38:29.560 a human body due to an extended stay in microgravity. 0:38:29.640 --> 0:38:34.200 Some of the student projects included things like observing Earth's atmospheres, 0:38:34.360 --> 0:38:39.080 ability to absorb radiant heat, X ray emissions from Jupiter, 0:38:39.560 --> 0:38:42.439 and capillary action studies in a state of free fall. 0:38:42.960 --> 0:38:46.000 While the collective times spend aboard Skylab amounted to one 0:38:46.480 --> 0:38:50.440 seventy one days for all of the crude missions, the 0:38:50.480 --> 0:38:55.440 amount of work done was truly little astronomical. I guess 0:38:56.120 --> 0:38:58.239 now when we come back, I'll cover one other really 0:38:58.280 --> 0:39:01.319 big aspect of sky Lab, and that's what it's like 0:39:01.400 --> 0:39:05.400 taking a shower in space. But first let's take another break, 0:39:12.880 --> 0:39:15.680 so I'll really have to do a full episode about 0:39:15.760 --> 0:39:18.160 sky Lab in the future, so that I can actually 0:39:18.200 --> 0:39:21.239 cover the whole thing and all the the science and 0:39:21.280 --> 0:39:24.239 technology aboard, because I know I'm just glancing over the 0:39:24.280 --> 0:39:26.880 topic in this episode, but that's because we have so 0:39:26.960 --> 0:39:30.280 much to cover to talk about space stations in general. However, 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:33.239 one thing I just could not leave behind was the 0:39:33.400 --> 0:39:37.879 shower aboard sky Lab. Now you might wonder how does 0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:42.160 one shower in microgravity? If you've ever seen astronauts playing 0:39:42.200 --> 0:39:47.280 with I'm sorry, I'm sorry, experimenting with liquids in outer space, 0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:50.520 you know that those liquids tend to form little wobbly 0:39:50.680 --> 0:39:54.719 globes and float around their environment. You don't have gravity, 0:39:55.120 --> 0:39:57.600 or really you don't have sufficient gravity to have them 0:39:57.640 --> 0:40:00.359 form into drop shapes and fall to the ground. And 0:40:00.440 --> 0:40:04.280 yet sky Lab had a shower aboard, a true luxury 0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:07.840 when compared against earlier US spacecraft like the Apollo and 0:40:07.960 --> 0:40:12.879 Jimini capsules, which reportedly could get really stinky, particularly as 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:16.439 missions stretched beyond a week in length. All right, so 0:40:17.160 --> 0:40:21.360 imagine that you've got a round shower curtain and it's 0:40:21.400 --> 0:40:24.960 on quote unquote the floor. The top of the shower 0:40:25.000 --> 0:40:27.120 curtain is connected to a metal ring. So really you 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:29.880 see a metal ring and some material folded beneath it. 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:32.359 So you step into the middle of this metal ring. 0:40:32.800 --> 0:40:35.640 Then you squat down, you grab the ring, and you 0:40:35.760 --> 0:40:37.879 lift it all the way up to the ceiling where 0:40:37.880 --> 0:40:40.600 it locks in place, and you essentially create your own 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:44.239 little shower cylinder. Now, okay, how do you do that? 0:40:44.280 --> 0:40:47.560 Because of micro gravity because you're gonna be floating around everywhere. Well, 0:40:47.719 --> 0:40:51.000 the on the floor of the station, which is weird 0:40:51.040 --> 0:40:52.920 to think of, because I mean up and down are 0:40:52.920 --> 0:40:55.360 such weird concepts when you're talking about space. But on 0:40:55.400 --> 0:40:58.080 the floor were a pair of bands where you would 0:40:58.080 --> 0:41:01.160 just kind of slip your feet in a little restraints 0:41:01.520 --> 0:41:04.320 to hold you down against the floor of the station 0:41:04.560 --> 0:41:07.440 so you don't float off with the SuDS. The shower 0:41:07.480 --> 0:41:11.239 itself was a handheld nozzle attached to a hose and 0:41:11.320 --> 0:41:13.920 you would put heated water which was taken from the 0:41:13.960 --> 0:41:17.440 waste management compartment water heater. However, it was not I 0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:21.160 should point out the actual wastewater that'd be gross, uh, 0:41:21.200 --> 0:41:23.759 and it served as the bathing liquid, or at least 0:41:23.800 --> 0:41:26.880 the heated liquid. This water in a canister would get 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:30.120 a pressurization boost from some nitrogen gas. So now you 0:41:30.160 --> 0:41:33.120 have some pressurized water in this canister, and then you 0:41:33.160 --> 0:41:35.920 would connect it to the shower mechanism, so the pressurized 0:41:35.960 --> 0:41:38.680 gas that had enough of the pressure to propel the 0:41:38.719 --> 0:41:42.480 water out of the nozzle. When you had the switch 0:41:42.480 --> 0:41:45.680 on the nozzle set to open a soap dispenser with 0:41:45.800 --> 0:41:48.359 eight whole milli liters of soap in it would serve 0:41:48.520 --> 0:41:52.279 for each shower, and uh it had velcrow on it 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:54.880 so you could attach it to the quote unquote ceiling 0:41:55.040 --> 0:41:58.320 of the shower. So you also couldn't just use a 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:00.520 drain for the shower, right because the water is not 0:42:00.600 --> 0:42:04.479 just gonna flow down to the floor. So to take 0:42:04.520 --> 0:42:08.320 care of the water, you also had a suction device. 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:11.520 You were using essentially a vacuum to collect the water 0:42:11.640 --> 0:42:15.560 because the water wouldn't, you know, drain out otherwise, So 0:42:15.600 --> 0:42:18.359 astronauts would use a vacuum to remove water both from 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:22.120 the shower and off of themselves as well. According to 0:42:22.320 --> 0:42:26.520 Jack Loosma, the experience was not necessarily relaxing. You had 0:42:26.560 --> 0:42:29.520 to mix water in a three quart container and make 0:42:29.560 --> 0:42:31.640 sure you've got the right mix of hot to cold 0:42:32.000 --> 0:42:35.720 so that you would have a comfortable shower temperature. The soap, 0:42:35.800 --> 0:42:38.919 he said, often left the astronauts feeling itchy. He said 0:42:38.920 --> 0:42:41.520 that it was better served as a veterinarian soap as 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:45.160 opposed it for humans. Um He also said that the 0:42:45.160 --> 0:42:47.799 water would evaporate off of your skin very quickly because 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:50.719 you're in a low pressure environment, and that that that 0:42:50.840 --> 0:42:53.440 you would start to get really cold. Because that evaporating 0:42:53.440 --> 0:42:56.400 process would pull energy away from you, heat energy, so 0:42:56.440 --> 0:42:59.480 you'd start to get the chills after a shower. Also, 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.760 drying off took a really long time, so long in fact, 0:43:02.760 --> 0:43:05.960 that some astronauts opted for using a sponge bath rather 0:43:06.040 --> 0:43:09.279 than using the shower, though they could take as many 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:13.040 showers as like one every week or ten days if 0:43:13.080 --> 0:43:16.319 they so chose. Now, according to the astronauts, it took 0:43:16.360 --> 0:43:20.239 about an hour to take a shower. Some accounts I've 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:22.359 seen suggest it might have even taken longer than that 0:43:22.760 --> 0:43:25.839 when you factor in all the different prep work and 0:43:26.000 --> 0:43:29.880 clean up work needed to do the whole process, And 0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:32.080 in fact, some of the estimations I saw said it 0:43:32.120 --> 0:43:35.200 was closer to two hours. That's not two hours of 0:43:35.239 --> 0:43:38.520 you taking a really long, luxurious shower, that's rather two 0:43:38.560 --> 0:43:41.239 hours come to complete the entire task from you know, 0:43:41.320 --> 0:43:44.360 prep to clean up. And that's another reason that a 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:46.800 lot of astronauts chose to go with sponge baths instead, 0:43:46.840 --> 0:43:50.040 because they felt it was a hassle. NASA eventually concluded 0:43:50.080 --> 0:43:52.640 that the shower was ultimately perhaps a little too complicated 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:55.360 to operate, and if astronauts weren't going to use it, 0:43:55.400 --> 0:43:57.680 there might be better ways to make sure folks don't 0:43:57.680 --> 0:44:00.080 stink up the joint rather than incorporating a piece a 0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:03.239 gear that people would avoid using anyway, kind of like 0:44:03.280 --> 0:44:07.880 a stinky sullen teenager. And oh, I also need to 0:44:07.880 --> 0:44:10.680 talk about the toilet. So we talked a bit about 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:14.360 how awkward pooping in space was for the Apollo cruise, 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:17.280 and you know they had to use you know, essentially 0:44:17.280 --> 0:44:20.000 a bag with adhesive on it to glue to their 0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:23.520 butts in order to collect their poops. Well, the sky 0:44:23.640 --> 0:44:28.120 Lab version was better, I guess. Sky Labs toilet was 0:44:28.239 --> 0:44:31.440 mounted on the wall of the bathroom inside the space station. 0:44:31.800 --> 0:44:35.080 The toilet had a hinged seat on it. Inside the 0:44:35.120 --> 0:44:37.400 toilet was a mesh bag, So if you need to poop, 0:44:37.719 --> 0:44:41.120 you would first put a fecal collection bag inside this 0:44:41.239 --> 0:44:45.480 mesh liner. Um. Then uh okay, well let me just 0:44:45.560 --> 0:44:48.040 read from NASA to make sure I get this right. 0:44:48.040 --> 0:44:51.080 Here we go quote. Air was drawn through the fecal 0:44:51.160 --> 0:44:54.680 bag from holes in the seat and exhausted through the 0:44:54.719 --> 0:44:58.880 bags vapor port through the mesh liner into the fecal 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:02.680 collection recept icle, and then through a filter where odors 0:45:02.680 --> 0:45:05.799 were removed before it was recirculated into the cabin by 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:09.520 a fan. To use the toilet for defecation, the crewman 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:14.320 sat on the contoured seat, then fastened a belt across 0:45:14.440 --> 0:45:17.920 his lap to hold him securely in position. Hand Holds 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:21.000 and foot restraints allowed him to maintain a sufficiently tight 0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:24.920 seal on the seat, as airflow from the fans separated 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:28.600 the fecal matter from his body and deposited it in 0:45:28.680 --> 0:45:32.279 the fecal collection bag. A separate fecal bag was used 0:45:32.360 --> 0:45:36.279 for each defecation end quote, which thank goodness for that right. 0:45:36.800 --> 0:45:40.800 As for urination, well, again to quote from NASA quote, 0:45:41.120 --> 0:45:45.040 the crewmen could urinate from either a standing or sitting position. 0:45:45.400 --> 0:45:48.680 A urine collector, located on the wall just below the 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:53.120 fecal collector, also utilized airflow as a substitute for gravity 0:45:53.360 --> 0:45:56.520 to draw the urine through a receiver and hose into 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:00.560 a urine collection bag. An alternate device incorporated a funnel 0:46:00.640 --> 0:46:04.160 like attachment through which the bag could be filled by 0:46:04.239 --> 0:46:08.040 bladder pressure. So I suppose by the way end quote, 0:46:08.040 --> 0:46:10.279 I suppose it's good to remind ourselves that around this 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:14.080 time all astronauts were male. Not that I'm saying that 0:46:14.160 --> 0:46:16.480 was a good thing, only that it was a true 0:46:16.560 --> 0:46:20.240 thing at that time. Because many of the experiments aboard 0:46:20.280 --> 0:46:24.320 Skylab related to medical studies, like the effects of microgravity 0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:27.440 and being in space for prolonged periods, much of that 0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:30.480 waste was meant to be returned to Earth for examination. 0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:34.040 So these bags would be vacuum dried and stored for 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:38.800 return to Earth. That included feces and, according to NASA, 0:46:39.080 --> 0:46:42.319 vomit because motion, sickness, and nausea were a thing up 0:46:42.320 --> 0:46:46.360 there too, so space sure is glamorous. As for the 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.600 urine that went into a centrifuge to separate the gases 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:53.040 inside the liquid from the liquid itself, then the liquid 0:46:53.080 --> 0:46:55.879 sample would be frozen for storage and to prevent any 0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:58.840 chemical changes that might occur otherwise in order to be 0:46:58.920 --> 0:47:01.880 returned to Earth. None, not all of it was stored 0:47:02.440 --> 0:47:06.759 and saved for for examination, some of it was some 0:47:06.880 --> 0:47:09.880 of it actually would go into a waste containment system 0:47:10.040 --> 0:47:12.879 aboard the space station. So I just want to make 0:47:12.880 --> 0:47:15.759 it clear that the astronauts weren't bringing all of their 0:47:15.800 --> 0:47:19.960 poops and peas back home, just you know, some of them. 0:47:19.960 --> 0:47:23.759 Oh and some other fun and less disgusting anecdotes during 0:47:23.800 --> 0:47:27.160 the Gemini missions, astronauts typically didn't really complain about the 0:47:27.160 --> 0:47:29.600 space food that NASA packed for them, but in the 0:47:29.640 --> 0:47:34.680 Apollo missions that changed astronauts really hated it, and so 0:47:34.840 --> 0:47:37.120 there was an effort put forward to make the food 0:47:37.239 --> 0:47:40.920 aboard sky Lab more palatable because astronauts were going to 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:44.080 be up there for much longer, and NASA wisely judged 0:47:44.480 --> 0:47:46.520 that the food was bad. It was going to have 0:47:46.520 --> 0:47:50.440 a negative impact on crew morale and thus potentially a 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:54.319 negative impact on productivity, so they worked pretty hard to 0:47:54.320 --> 0:47:56.719 try and fix that while also making sure to meet 0:47:56.760 --> 0:47:59.880 the nutritional needs of the astronauts. Now, some of that 0:48:00.040 --> 0:48:03.680 food that was sent aboard Skylab in that initial launch 0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:06.200 was deemed to be dangerous by the time the first 0:48:06.200 --> 0:48:10.799 crew got to Skylab because remember that that laboratory had 0:48:10.840 --> 0:48:14.240 been exposed to very high temperatures because the heat shield 0:48:14.280 --> 0:48:17.560 had failed to deploy because it was stripped away in launch. 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:20.200 So the stuff that was in cans had been heated 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:22.840 to a point where it could potentially be dangerous, so 0:48:22.880 --> 0:48:24.839 that could no longer be consumed. But there was other 0:48:24.880 --> 0:48:27.759 stuff that was frozen and it was unaffected because it 0:48:27.800 --> 0:48:30.680 was protected in a freezer. And there are other types 0:48:30.719 --> 0:48:33.400 of space food that were also fine, so not everything 0:48:33.480 --> 0:48:37.879 was wasted. Also because Skylab used air flow to substitute 0:48:37.880 --> 0:48:40.840 for gravity, so you you know, used the flow of 0:48:40.880 --> 0:48:43.440 air like you had had vents that were suctioning up 0:48:43.440 --> 0:48:46.000 air and other events that were blowing out air. While 0:48:46.000 --> 0:48:48.560 astronauts found that stuff had a tendency to kind of 0:48:48.560 --> 0:48:52.400 migrate towards the air filters where the system was siphoning 0:48:52.480 --> 0:48:56.360 up air to recycle it. Uh So, if something got lost, 0:48:56.400 --> 0:48:58.600 they would just look around the air filters because typically 0:48:58.640 --> 0:49:01.120 that's where stuff was because that flow of air was 0:49:01.160 --> 0:49:05.400 pulling things toward it. So they actually made one surface 0:49:05.480 --> 0:49:08.520 that had one of these filters a workspace because the 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:11.359 tools would tend to stay put on the filter rather 0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:13.759 than just float off, which is kind of interesting. It's 0:49:13.760 --> 0:49:16.920 something you don't necessarily think about when you're not in microgravity. 0:49:17.280 --> 0:49:21.480 Generally speaking, sky Lab wasn't just an efficient science platform, 0:49:21.760 --> 0:49:24.359 nor was it just a space station that was up 0:49:24.360 --> 0:49:27.120 in orbit for way longer than we could actually use it. 0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:29.080 I mean, when you think about it, it was up 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:31.120 there for several years, but we only used it for 0:49:31.239 --> 0:49:33.800 less than a year. But it was also a learning 0:49:33.800 --> 0:49:36.200 experience for NASA and would go a long way toward 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:39.680 informing the agency about designing the next big space station. 0:49:40.320 --> 0:49:42.799 We'll talk more about that in our next episode. So 0:49:43.040 --> 0:49:45.799 things to look forward to. In our next episode, We're 0:49:45.840 --> 0:49:48.799 going to talk about the Russian space station mirror. That's 0:49:48.920 --> 0:49:52.400 very important. We're gonna talk about the proposal of space 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:56.440 station freedom, the US space station that never was, and 0:49:56.680 --> 0:50:00.080 the birth of the International Space Station and how it 0:50:00.120 --> 0:50:07.319 has a halter of the time. Text Stuff is an 0:50:07.320 --> 0:50:11.040 I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, 0:50:11.360 --> 0:50:14.520 visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:50:14.600 --> 0:50:16.120 you listen to your favorite shows.