Skylab
gregladen | August 29, 2015Skylab came up in conversation the other day. And then I ran into Amy Shira Teitel's video. So, naturally, a quick blog post.
Skylab was brought down, ultimately, by interaction with the upper reaches of the atmosphere, which was in turn made more likely by solar activity. But, both the nature and extent of solar activity of this type, and its effects on the atmosphere, were not understood when Skylab was being designed and deployed. Indeed, understanding this set of phenomena was a contribution made by Skylab science. Had Skylab been launched after, rather than before, this was better…