Project Skylab - Background

Background

Rocket scientist and space architect Wernher von Braun, writer Arthur C. Clarke, and other early advocates expected until the 1960s that a space station would be an important early step in space exploration. Von Braun participated in the publishing of a series of influential articles in Collier's, "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!", from 1952 to 1954 on manned space travel. He envisioned a large, circular station 250 feet in diameter that would rotate to generate gravity and require a fleet of 7,000-ton space shuttles for construction. The 80 men aboard the station would include astronomers operating a telescope, meteorologists to forecast the weather, and soldiers to conduct surveillance. Von Braun expected that future expeditions to the moon and Mars would leave from the station. The development of the transistor, the solar cell, and telemetry led in the 1950s and early 1960s to unmanned satellites that could take photographs of weather patterns or enemy nuclear weapons and send them to earth. A large station was no longer necessary for such purposes, and the United States program to send men to the moon, Project Apollo, was designed to not require in-orbit assembly. A smaller station that a single rocket could launch retained value, however, for scientific purposes.