Skylab

Skylab, launched uncrewed atop the final Saturn V on May 14, 1973, was America’s first space station — a laboratory built inside a converted rocket stage with more habitable volume than a small house. The launch tore off a micrometeoroid shield and one solar wing, and the first crew’s daring repair, deploying a sunshade parasol through a science airlock, saved the overheating station.

Three crews lived aboard Skylab for 28, 59, and 84 days, running medical experiments that established how the human body adapts to long-duration weightlessness and operating the Apollo Telescope Mount, the first major solar observatory in space. Skylab’s lessons in station design, crew scheduling, and repair-in-orbit flowed directly into the International Space Station.