A Pull Against Skylab’s Hull

Transcript

On June seventh, nineteen seventy-three, Skylab astronauts Charles Conrad and Joseph Kerwin went outside for a three-hour, twenty-five-minute spacewalk to free jammed solar-array wing one. The array was needed to generate electricity. To reach the problem, they improvised a cutter: six rods joined end to end, with a cable cutter at one end and a long pull rope. A tether secured the assembly to Skylab, and the rods also gave them a handrail toward the array. For the pull, they used a Beam Erection Tether, a rope-and-hook assembly attached between the array and the area near the antenna. It was meant to help open the wing and restrain the astronauts. But there were few footholds, so they could not simply haul on one end. Instead, they put the tether’s middle over a shoulder, braced against Skylab’s hull, and pulled upward. The panels extended, and electricity-meter needles jumped. The work shows how they adapted both their tools and their body position to the limited places they could brace themselves.