Skylab was huge!

[pokerfan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sa-_Knre68">NASA archive footage of a 1973 film tour through the surprisingly spacious compartments of the Skylab station

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awe6vOXURpY">Pete Conrad running inside Skylab

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYsKGDJe4zE">Inside of the station, view of astronauts running and jumping around

Size comparison (ft³):
Skylab: 10,000
ISS (current): 12,626

So why was the ISS so expensive? This is why:

Skylab Assembly:
Skylab was launched into Earth orbit by a single Saturn V rocket on May 14, 1973
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/skylab

ISS Assembly:
Zarya: launched Nov. 20, 1998
Unity: attached Dec. 8, 1998
Zvezda: attached July 25, 2000
Z1 Truss: attached Oct. 14, 2000
P6 Integrated Truss: attached Dec. 3, 2000
Destiny: attached Feb. 10, 2001
Canadarm2: attached April 22, 2001
Joint Airlock: attached July 15, 2001
Pirs: attached Sept. 16, 2001
S0 Truss: attached April 11, 2002
S1 Truss: attached Oct. 10, 2002
P1 Truss: attached Nov. 26, 2002
P3/P4 Truss: attached Sept. 12, 2006
P5 Truss: attached Dec. 12, 2006
Harmony: attached Oct. 26, 2007
Columbus: attached Feb. 11, 2008
Kibo (ELM-PS): attached March 14, 2008
Kibo (JPM): attached June 3, 2008
S6 Truss: attached March 19, 2009

Skylab was sent up in one launch and the ISS required nineteen.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/isstodate.html

[caraher]

1. It helps to have an unused Saturn V lying around

The outer shell of Skylab was basically the third stage of the Saturn V. Take out the rocket parts and insert lab.

Still, it was really more than a single launch, when you consider that it would have been utterly useless without the improvised repairs that dominated the first mission. And it was used by just three crews... I wonder what a comparison of the inflation-adjusted cost per astronaut-hour on Skylab vs. ISS would look like?

[pokerfan]

2. And the ISS is really more than 19 launches

About sixty at last count.

Yeah, Skylab was the Saturn V third stage with the lab replacing the S-IVB lunar booster.

If our goal was to actually make it cheaper to put stuff in orbit then the Shuttle was a gigantic step backwards which will quickly become apparent if/when Ares V ever flies.

The problem with the shuttle is that about 80% of the mass launched into orbit (at great expense mind you) is returned to Earth. It has to be about the most retarded method method to assemble a space station.

Nixon killed Apollo in the middle of 12 planned missions because he perceived it as a Kennedy program. By extension, he also killed the planned 1980's Mars mission. I find it ironic that Nixon's signature is on the Moon and not JFK's:



In my opinion, this is the direction we should have taken forty years ago:


(Expendable single stage to orbit Nova using conical shape, 30 CD module engines in zero-length plug nozzle. Operational date would have been November 1977.)

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nova.htm

[Occulus]

3. That is really, really, shocking.

Can someone please explain to me why we haven't copied this? We could have had something much larger than the ISS in place right now had we done so.

When I was growing up Skylab was for some reason something of a joke. I now see we were all laughing at exactly the wrong thing. Skylab was impressive as all hell. It still is.

Why can't we do that instead of the piecemeal ISS assembly process?

[caraher]

4. Skylab was an improvised project; the "joke" you recall was its demise

Skylab got the most headlines because its orbit decayed a bit sooner than anticipated, and there was a lot of concern over where and when it might re-enter the atmosphere and whether any debris might cause any damage. I dimly recall that the issue was that there was more atmospheric drag in its orbit thanks to elevated solar activity, which meant that ideas like having a shuttle mission boost it into a different orbit would not work (since the shuttle would not be flying in time).

A detailed account I just found seems to largely vindicate my vague memory...

As pokerfan pointed out, the shuttle really never did make sense for mere delivery of materials to orbit - its unique capability was being able to return big payloads. What would have brought costs per unit mass in orbit down would have been a dedicated one-way heavy lift vehicle.

[pokerfan]

5. Was it ever used to return a large payload?

Many missions were classified to be sure. But I see great difficulties in simply tossing a satellite into the Shuttle's cargo bay and attempting reentry.

Skylab was left in a parking orbit expected to last at least eight years. The Space Shuttle was intended to dock with and elevate the station to a higher safe altitude in 1979; however, it was not ready until 1981. Increased solar activity heated the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere and thereby increased drag on Skylab, leading to an early reentry. In the previous weeks before reentry, ground controllers had re-established contact with the six-year-old vehicle and were able to adjust its orientation for optimal reentry dynamics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Abandonment_and_reentry

And of course, NASA now intends to http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/13/1330220">de-orbit the ISS.

[caraher]

6. Nothing terribly large

and yeah, it's not as if one could just stuff the cargo bay to the gills and expect a safe re-entry. But they did snag and return a few satellites that you could never haul back in an Apollo or Soyuz capsule. And the bulk of the science payloads went up and back as opposed to being left in orbit - that's a form of a return mission, even if it didn't involved retrieving something that had orbited independently.