Lunar Skylab

The United States was forming quite a bit of a space complex.

They had space stations in low earth orbit, learning how to live and work in space, eventually to establish a permanent presence in low earth orbit.

They had bases on the surface of the moon. Learning how to live and work on the lunar surface, 239,000 miles from earth, and in the case of the BLA base, not even visible from the surface of the earth.

They even had satellites far from earth at the earth-moon Lagrangian points.

All of this has been discussed in past episodes of Belitopia.

But what was left was an orbital presence above the surface of the moon. We’ve had many ships that have orbited the moon. Every Apollo mission that went to the moon, orbited the moon for some period of time. Yet, given the constraints of the Apollo command module, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for long term study of the lunar surface from lunar orbit.

This was the purpose of the Lunar Skylab program. Provide an environment for the long term study of the lunar surface from low lunar orbit.

This is…Lunar Skylab. Welcome to Belitopia.

Links

• Episode Details (https://belitopia.com/108)
• Belitopia Information from this Episode (https://belitopia.com/lunarskylab)
• Skylab + Episode (https://belitopia.com/105)
• Apollo Lunar Bases p1 Episode (https://belitopia.com/106)
• Apollo Lunar Bases p2 Episode (https://belitopia.com/107)
• Lunar Frozen Orbits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_orbit#Lunar_frozen_orbits)

Topic Introduction

The goal of the Lunar Skylab program was to send a Skylab-like space station into *lunar* orbit — 60 miles above the surface of the moon — then occupy the station with long duration crews that could study the lunar surface in greater detail, along with learn how to live in zero G far from the surface of the earth.

In real life, this program never took place. There was never a space station built beyond low earth orbit. But in Belitopia, we deployed a Skylab-like space station into Lunar orbit in order to facilitate the study of the lunar surface, to facilitate telescopic study of the space without the worry of earth’s atmosphere, and explore alternative transportation mechanisms between lunar orbit and the lunar surface.

What follows is a fictional documentary about the Lunar Skylab space station. The documentary is presented as if it takes place in the year 2040, some 70 years after these events took place. The documentary, titled “Our World in Space”, describes the construction and occupation of this lunar space station. The documentary describes these events as a future historical record of past events.

While fiction, it’s based on research into how such a station may have been constructed, what it would have been used for, and how it would have benefited humankind. Theis documentary is about the Lunar Skylab program and its impact on our long term presence in space. The Lunar Skylab program, in the world of Belitopia.

Documentary

Hello, and welcome to “Our World in Space — The Lunar Skylab Program”.

The Lunar Skylab. A space station 60 miles above the lunar surface. The first long duration human habitat to be built in space that was not in low earth orbit.

The technology wasn’t hard for the station itself. The space station was essentially identical to the Skylab I space station, except it utilized many technology improvements that were built into Skylab III.

The hard part was, how do we put it into lunar orbit? After all, the original skylab was launched into low earth orbit using a Saturn V rocket, at least the first two stages of it. That was easy. But now, the goal was to send the same station not 100 miles above the surface of the earth, but they needed to send it 239,000 miles away to a lunar orbit.

They did this by making use of a third stage to the Saturn V, and putting the skylab station above that third stage. The additional third stage was actually an S-IVC third stage — the same third stage that was used for the Venus Flyby mission. An extended and more powerful third stage than the standard S-IVB that was used to send the Apollo spacecraft to lunar orbit.

The Lunar Skylab was launched from earth on October 10, 1977. The single Skylab module was put into low earth orbit by the first and second stage of the Saturn V rocket. There it remained for a short stay while it was checked out and verified that it was undamaged during the launch. Then, the third stage S-IVC engine fired and sent the Lunar Skylab module on its 239,000 mile trip to the moon. The stations arrived in lunar orbit on October 13, 1977. The solar panels were deployed automatically, and the station was ready for occupation. The station was put into an orbit roughly 60 miles above the surface of the moon.

A Stable Lunar Orbit

Remaining in lunar orbit was a challenge. Due to variation in the composition of the moon, and changing densities, objects in lunar orbit tended to fall out of orbit. This was an ongoing problem with many previous unmanned satellites sent to the moon, along with all the Apollo manned voyages to the lunar surface. Maintaining a stable orbit was nearly impossible.

However, during the many missions that came before the lunar skylab was ready for launch, it was determined that there were four stable orbits…called frozen orbits…where a satellite such as the Lunar Skylab station could exist and remain in orbit for the long term. The easiest orbit was at an 86 degree angle, which was a nearly polar orbit. This was possible, but it would mean it would be difficult for ships arriving from earth to dock with the space station, if they were also destined to land on the lunar surface. Given this, a much more equatorial orbit was desired. A second frozen orbit was found to exist at a 27 degree angle above equatorial, and this was considered to be close enough to be reasonable for docking with lunar surface bound space ships, such as the LT missions that transported crews to the lunar surface.

Once the Lunar Skylab was in a safe and stable orbit above the lunar surface, the first crew for the station left earth. This was on October 13, 1977. The crew of Lunar Skylab M1 departed earth and arrived in lunar orbit on October 16, 1977, when they docked with the orbiting space station. They remained at the station for some 40 days before returning to earth on November 28, 1977. Their primary purpose was to setup and test the various components that made up the space station, and make sure it was ready for long term occupancy.

In all, seven crews visited the lunar skylab over a period of roughly three years. The longest duration stay was Lunar Skylab M4, which stayed for 386 days.

The Lunar Skylab included a telescope mount, just like the original Skylab I and the currently active Skylab III had. The telescope was used to take deep space pictures from lunar orbit. This was especially useful when the ship was in the point of its orbit where it was in the shadow of the sun, and away from the glow of the earth. The darkness at this point gave unprecedented access to the night sky that was great for deep space exploration, much better photographs than was possible from using standard 1980s technology telescopes. This created tremendous opportunities for deep space discovery.

Lunar Geological Photography

In addition to taking pictures out towards outer space, the various crews of the Lunar Skylab took significant pictures of the lunar surface. One of the crews of Lunar Skylab, the M4 crew, which stayed the longest at the station, had among its crew a astro-geologist who could study the pictures real time and decide what additional pictures should be taken of what parts of the lunar surface. This meant the pictures that were taken weren’t just random pictures of the surface, but were strategically placed photographs of important characteristics of the lunar surface. This sort of intelligent target determination was only possible because a live, human astronaut was onboard the station. This could not be accomplished with 1980s technology using an unmanned satellite. It must be done using a crewed space station. This research was invaluable to the study of the composition of the lunar surface. Among other things, these photographs helped determine where there was likely to be deposits of water under the lunar surface, and where particularly valuable and/or interesting minerals were located. The value of this research was incredible, and that value alone justified the cost of the mission.

The New Lunar Lander

The Lunar Skylab was also used for one other important project, that of testing out a new prototype lunar lander that was being developed in the late 1970s. This land, which was designed as a long term replacement for the old disposable Apollo LMs, was a reusable lander that could land and take off over and over again. It did not leave behind it’s descent stage, as did the old LM, so it did not create a lunar graveyard. It could be reused over and over again. As long as it had a sufficient supply of fuel, it could land and take off multiple times during a single mission. It also had the capacity to carry up to six astronauts, or fewer astronauts and an increased payload or fuel load. This lunar lander was designed to be the future transportation system for our planned permanent presence on the lunar surface.

And in 1979, it was ready to be tested…

Testing