The Skylab Story 9 July, 2009 4:25PM AWST abc news online

Skylab was a US space station launched by NASA in 1973, and was manned by teams of astronauts as it orbited the earth. It collected vast amounts of data and images before being abandoned in space in 1974.

In 1979, NASA realised that Skylab was starting to break up and would re-enter the earth atmosphere, but they were unable to control Skylab's path, nor could they predict exactly where the pieces might land.

As NASA, and the world's media, tracked Skylab's progress in early July 1979, it seemed it could end up anywhere.

In the early hours of the 12th of July, 1979, Skylab crashed on WA's south east coast, scattering debris across the Nullarbor and the eastern goldfields and causing a worldwide sensation.

NASA officials arrived in Esperance to check out the wreckage. Every local that brought a piece of Skylab to the shire offices to be verified was given a plaque. But it was a US newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, who turned the hunt for souvenirs into a frenzy when they offered $10,000 dollars to the first person to arrive at their office with an authentic piece of Skylab - the winner had just 72 hours to get to America. The prize was claimed by 17 year old Stan Thorton from Esperance.

These days, Skylab is a source of pride to the people of Esperance and the Nullarbor, who remember the lights, the sonic boom and the fuss that followed.

The skylab crash put Esperance on the map, but it didn't stop the shire council having a light hearted dig at NASA for scatter space junk over the town, sending them a $400 fine for littering, which they never paid.

Today, Skylab is celebrated by the locals with a large display of wreckage, photographs and Skylab models at the local museum.

You can hear the story of skylab, told through archival reports and locals, in the audio link see below...

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/goldfields/200907/r396822_1858554.mp3

Movie on Skylab

Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA and was the United States' first space station. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a weight of 169,950 pounds (77 t). The station was damaged during launch when the micrometeoroid shield separated from the workshop and tore away, taking one of two main solar panel arrays with it and jamming the other one so that it could not deploy. This deprived Skylab of most of its electrical power, and also removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable. The first crew was able to save it in the first in-space major repair, by deploying a replacement heat shade and freeing the jammed solar panels.