The 'strike' in space
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The three astronauts on the Skylab 4 space research mission in 1973 got behind schedule when one of them vomited before they'd even got onto the space station. They felt they were being micromanaged by ground control, and that their workload was unreasonable - and one day, all three of them missed their daily radio briefing. Some people at Nasa thought they'd gone on strike. But what really happened? Lucy Burns speaks to Dr Edward Gibson, the only surviving member of the trio, about an incident that has been misremembered as the Skylab space strike.
Photo: Scientist-astronaut Edward G Gibson sailing through airlock module hatch of the Skylab, demonstrating the effects of zero-gravity, February, 1974. (Image courtesy National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa)/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and |
| 0:35.0 | the BBC World Service. |
| 0:38.0 | I'm Lucy Burns and today we're looking back at a workplace dispute in space. |
| 0:43.8 | In 1973, three American astronauts on board the Skylab space station |
| 0:49.2 | had a disagreement with mission control over their workload in an incident that has been |
| 0:53.9 | misremembered as the Skylab space strike. |
| 0:57.0 | 4, 3, 2, 1, I see ignition, I see ignition. There is a lift off. |
| 1:03.6 | The rocket is proceeding very smoothly up the gantry, |
| 1:06.4 | and it's a beautiful, beautiful liftoff. |
| 1:08.6 | On board the Skylab 4 mission were Gerald Carr, William or Bill Pogue and Ed Gibson who spoke to me about the experience from his home in Arizona. |
| 1:22.0 | Our story starts on the shuttle up to the space station |
| 1:26.0 | with someone being sick. |
| 1:28.0 | Bill said, you know, I'm not feeling too terribly well. |
| 1:31.0 | And Jerry said, well, maybe you ought to eat something |
| 1:34.7 | to help you settle your stomach. So he passed a can of tomatoes over to Bill. I |
... |
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