OTD in 1979, the first US space station #Skylab fell to Earth over Western Australia. It was a dramatic event that captured the imagination of the world. Today I am going to tweet a random bunch of fascinating things about the death of my second-favourite space station!
One of the meals prepared for the crew of #Skylab to eat in their wardroom was Lobster Newburg. Here is a recipe if you want to make a Skylab commemorative dinner. marthastewart.com/354999/lobster… #spacefood
When the Electric Light Orchestra's song Don't Bring Me Down was released as a single in 1979, they dedicated it to #Skylab.
This poem by Australian poet John Kinsella compares the scattered debris of #Skylab to pieces of the True Cross. zoharesque.blogspot.com/2011/06/space-…
Skylab was tracked by the Honeysuckle Creek (ACT) and Carnarvon (WA) stations in Australia honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/… #Skylab
The #Skylab crews did a lot of amazing science. One experiment was watching spiders Anita and Arabella make microgravity webs. Here is poor little Anita in the @airandspace museum. 
More #Skylab goodness to come after I have done some cooking things in the kitchen!
One of Skylab's missions was to look for a lost Mennonite colony in the jungles of Paraguay. This is a more complex story than it seems at first. theconversation.com/mennonites-hel… #Skylab
The Deakin Telephone Exchange in Canberra was part of the NASA Communications Network. Here are staff monitoring data on #Skylab on July 3, 1979 (via @TroveAustralia)
Musical interlude 2: Grimsdell sing the #Skylab Blues
This #Skylab transmission to mark the anniversary of the space station's dramatic re-entry on July 11, 1979, will be interrupted periodically for cocktails, cooking and eating activities.
Here is a #Skylab cocktail for you to enjoy! (I'm actually having a Vanguard's Revenge tonight though) justapinch.com/recipes/drink/…
This was my cocktail tonight: the Vanguard's Revenge. We'll get back to #Skylab facts soon....
Skylab was the largest object ever launched into space in the 1970s, and the largest object to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. People didn't know what to think. For little kids, it was often a lightning rod for their understanding of heaven and Earth. #Skylab.
In this charming short film, a small child considers his moral universe through the lens of #Skylab zoharesque.blogspot.com/2011/07/the-ps…
Skylab's re-entry is one of the most vividly remembered space events in Australia's history - more so than becoming the 3rd nation globally to launch a satellite from within its own borders (WRESAT 1 in 1967). Why? What does this say about Australia's space identity?
Why #Skylab is more important in Australian space culture than it's own satellites is a question I try to answer in this paper:
Gorman, A.C. 2011 The sky is falling: how Skylab became an Australian icon. Journal of Australian Studies 35(4):529-546.
Gorman, A.C. 2011 The sky is falling: how Skylab became an Australian icon. Journal of Australian Studies 35(4):529-546.
Musical interlude 3: Ballad of a Balladonia Night, by Family. Balladonia was a small town in Western Australia which got a lot of #Skylab debris!
I've got so much more to say about #Skylab! But I have to confess after a family dinner, cocktails and champagne, I might be running out of puff ...
Today I'll be tweeting more about the US #Skylab space station, it's demise in July 1979, and the culture that has grown around it!
In #Skylab's last days in orbit, a Canberra newspaper started a competition to predict the time that the largest piece re-entered. The prize? The height of Space Age sophistication - a Sanyo 8-digit calculator!
I don't want to draw too long a bow here, but there was so much uncertainty about the date and location of #Skylab's re-entry that people were anxious. It just wasn't clear what would happen. Would the world blow up? There are some parallels with our present situation ...
By the way, if you are tempted to make a #Skylab cocktail (see earlier in thread), @twiddlekins has shared the following 'caveat imbiber'. Apologies if it's too late for you! gumbopages.com/food/beverages…
People were not wrong to feel anxious about the effects of #Skylab. The year before, a Soviet satellite, Kosmos 945, had re-entered over northern Canada, releasing deadly nuclear fuel on the lands of Dene and other Indigenous people. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ope…
There was also a concern that #Skylab debris might strike an aeroplane, with dire consequences for crew, passengers and cargo. (10 July, Canberra Times)
Astronomers were scanning the skies for signs of the spacecraft .... here is one of the telescopes at the Mt Stromlo observatory (I think this one was severely burnt in the 2003 fires) on July 11, 1979. #Skylab
Skylab hadn't even made it down to Earth before its body was commodified as an object of exchange. #Skylab
After landing, pieces of #Skylab became precious souvenirs, split up and circulated in an economy of desire. @FossilLocator has some of these beauties!
Musical Interlude 4: Skylab by Steve Dahl and Teenage Radiation. #Skylab
When #Skylab was down, the 'outback' of Western Australia was the setting for a veritable feeding frenzy of NASA officials and souvenir hunters looking for pieces of the space station. (PNG Courier 16 July)
As a space archaeologist, I'm particularly interested in the materiality of these #Skylab bits, and what they symbolised for people. These connections are part of contemporary 'space culture'.
Creepy people connections to #Skylab:
1. Donny Osmond was a guest at the 1979 Miss Universe Pageant in Perth, and sang Rolf Harris' Tie Me Kangaroo Down.
2. From 1996 to 2015, the Miss Universe organisation was co-owned by a certain icky president of USA.
1. Donny Osmond was a guest at the 1979 Miss Universe Pageant in Perth, and sang Rolf Harris' Tie Me Kangaroo Down.
2. From 1996 to 2015, the Miss Universe organisation was co-owned by a certain icky president of USA.
The most famous story of #Skylab was how the Shire of Esperance fined the US State Department for littering. What most people don't know, however, was that the littering legislation was only introduced that year.
Everyone was thinking about #Skylab! Pieces turned up everywhere ...
What did it mean to own a piece of #Skylab? Why were these bits of debris so valued and sought after?
