Searching for Skylab

The science astronauts - Owen, Ed and Joe would fly on #Skylab!

#Skylab's Jack Lousma demonstrates a cozy nook onboard the Space Shuttle - flying from one era to another!

Beautiful, colorful diagrams illustrating #Skylab's Earth surface photography operations.

The #Skylab parasol being tested.

Jack Lousma! #Skylab

Gerry, Bill, Ed - the crew of #Skylab 4!

A look at the business end of Skylab.

Ed Gibson trains at the ATM control console simulator. #Skylab

Skylab 4 crew - Ed Gibson, Gerald Carr, Bill Pogue. #Skylab

The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator was the big water tank used to train #Skylab astronauts in spacewalking around the station.

TV image of mealtime on #Skylab.

Dr Joe and bubbles of water in microgravity! #Skylab

A spectacular solar flare photographed from Skylab.

Skylab's Joe Kerwin poses with Astronaut Candidate Anna Fisher after pool training. Apparently Fisher got to wear Pete Conrad's training suit, because it was the smallest available! Shuttle suits were still underway. What a fascinating view into generations meeting, and learning from one another.

While Skylab was being assembled, these were the dreams. #NASA images.

This is the end of the real-time coverage of Skylab 3. We will return on November 16 for Skylab 4! Stay tuned meanwhile with updates on other exciting Skylab history stories. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Welcome back, Skylab 3! Al, Owen and Jack splashed down #OTD in 1973!

It's splashdown day! And the crew of Skylab 3 started it with style. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

It was the last full day of the mission, and the jokes are reflective of this fact. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Campaign exhaustion was perhaps starting to set in as the crew debated the topic of returning some Skylab food items to Earth for analysis. Bruce McCandless II in Mission Control supplied remarks. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Football scores! #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

We feel that the crew of Skylab 3 is only getting funnier towards the end of their mission. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Now we want to know about the coin trick too! #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

The Skylab crew had their sleep patterns adjusted, which made for more fun and games with the CapCom. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Today, the joking just went on and on. So enjoy Jack's Japanese skills, and endless ribbing of the flight control team by the crew. All in good fun. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Spacecraft can be noisy, and people are especially noisy. Today, CapCom Bob Crippen recalled how his SMEAT colleague Bill Thornton's endless cycling kept interrupting the others. According to Al Bean, history was repeating itself on Skylab. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Sad news from Skylab today: Anita the spider had apparently succumbed to the stresses of spaceflight, after an exciting mission. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

Vale Robert Redford.

On the news today: forest fires, Skylab's success, and the upcoming Battle of the Sexes 1973, featuring tennis stars Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Wonder who won... #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD

The Skylab astronauts had a limited number of shoes at their disposal, and the wear and tear required some duct tape repairs. #Skylab50 #SkylabOTD