On one day in 1973, three American astronauts on board the Skylab space-station closed their radio link with NASA ground stations and took time off to chill.
On
December 28, the Government of India okayed India’s
first human spaceflight programme at a cost of Rs 9,023 crore.
The programme will attempt to launch three Indian astronauts to
low-Earth orbit for as many as seven days. If the mission – slated
to happen in 2022 – succeeds, India will become only the fourth
country in the world able to launch astronauts into space.
It
is not yet clear what the astronauts will do in space. The
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which is leading the
programme, has said they will perform some science experiments on
their first flight but nothing of what comes after. But there’s no
doubt that there are a lot of possibilities, and that astronauts –
Indian and otherwise – have lots left to do in the coming decades.
They’re crucial in everything from extraterrestrial mining to Mars
missions, space diplomacy to weaponisation,.
In
this sense, it is important for space organisations to maintain a
keen awareness of their spacefarers’ fitness. Humans aren’t
naturally equipped to deal with the alien nature of space, to live in
confined quarters with zero gravity, no horizon in sight and with
limited resources. If they have coping issues up there, things can
get rapidly and profoundly disastrous for all involved.
NASA
experienced one of the first such incidents (although there haven’t
been many) 45 years ago. On one day in 1973, the three American
astronauts on board the Skylab space-station closed their radio link
with NASA
ground stations and took time off to chill.
The
Skylab was a space-station owned by the US and operated by NASA.
Skylab 4 was the last mission on it. It began on November 16, 1973,
with astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue. At the
time of launch, the trio was told that their mission would last at
least 60 days – a record at the time. It eventually lasted 84 days.
The
two previous crews that had been on Skylab had completed a large
amount of work – “150% of their science goals”, according to
one telling. This gave NASA the impression that pushing the
astronauts to do more was okay, even though the commanders of the two
previous manned Skylab missions advised against it. And because Carr,
Gibson and Pogue would be the last astronauts onboard the
experimental space-station, NASA also wanted to make sure they’d
also finish all other pending experiments.
The
result was that the astronauts would have to work 16 hours a day for
the entire duration of the mission.
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