Mar 5, 2025
Portraits of all three Skylab Astronaut crews.
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Portraits of all three Skylab Astronaut crews.
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Skylab4🛰️ Space Station🪐 Command Module🛸 NASM
February 8, 1974 — The record-breaking crew of Skylab 4 splashes down
Astronauts Jerry Carr, Ed Gibson, and Bill Pogue set the record for longest manned spaceflight during Skylab 4 in 1973 and 1974. During their 84 days in space, they observed the newly discovered Comet Kohoutek, performed four EVAs, and carried out investigations on the physiological effects of long-duration spaceflight. The splashdown was the first American splashdown not covered live by major TV networks since Gemini 6 in 1965.
Saturn 1B launch vehicle moving toward the launch pad for the Skylab 4 mission - 1973.
"The astronauts’ radio silence hadn’t been on purpose, and they hadn’t taken the day off without permission as some second-hand accounts suggest. But even just the temporary belief that they had gone on strike — and the sudden awareness that they conceivably could — seems to have helped change the dynamic between the Skylab 4 crew and ground control. A few days later, administrators called a 'crisis meeting.' The crew expressed their frustrations with NASA’s heavy-handed management style. They asked to be given a list of tasks instead of a down-to-the-minute schedule, and to be trusted to use their own judgment in deciding how to complete them.
At the end of these talks, ground control agreed to try letting them set their own schedules. As a result, the crew’s performance improved dramatically. When they returned to Earth, it turned out that their efficiency actually exceeded that of the superstar crew that came before them.
In addition to less stressful and more effective work, the Skylab 4 crew also had more time to enjoy themselves in space, including marveling at their miraculous view of the earth. 'You really got to know the earth like the back of your hand,' [Ed] Gibson told the BBC, 'and you really appreciated it.'
Gibson believes that NASA learned a major lesson from this series of events. 'Our mission proved that micromanagement does not work, except where a situation like lift-off or re-entry demands it,' he told the BBC. 'Fortunately, that hard lesson got passed on for future space flights and crews.'
And the lessons from Skylab 4 aren’t confined to the space sector. The story of the accidental 'strike' in space underscores the extent to which all workers who are overworked and laboring to meet impossible expectations actually have power to turn the tables, a hidden leverage.
No operation that relies on human labor can continue without the compliance of those performing the work, which is why the short-lived notion that the Skylab 4 crew had gone on strike appears to have helped precipitate discussions in which the astronauts were able to secure a better arrangement.
Strikes work, and strike threats work too — be they intentional or accidental, on Earth or in space. Sometimes bosses just need a little reminder that, in the words of an old labor anthem, 'without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.''
- Meagan Day, from "Houston, We Have a Labor Dispute." Jacobin, 17 June 2021.
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Former NASA astronaut Gerald "Jerry" Carr, who in 1973 led the record-setting, final mission on the United States' first space station, has
“Throughout his life and career, Jerry Carr was the epitome of an officer and a gentleman. He loved his family, he loved his country and he loved to fly. We are all enormously proud of his legacy as a true space pioneer and of the lasting impact of his historic mission aboard America's first space station. We will remember him most as a devoted husband, father, brother, grandfather and great grandfather. We will miss him greatly.”
On this date in 1973, NASA launched Skylab 4 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The three astronauts on board would be the third and final crew aboard the first American space station. Their 84-day mission set a new space endurance record.
This image, created on February 7, 1972, was created by NASA, presumably to illustrate its future plans for space travel and exploration. It is part of Hagley Library’s collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials, Series II. Nation’s Business photographs (Accession 1993.230.II). To view more items from this collection online, visit its page in our Digital Archive by clicking here.
Practical jokes in space. A dummy was left behind by the Skylab 3 crew on the exercise bike (wearing Skylab 4 Pilot William Pogue’s uniform) for the subsequent crew to discover following docking, Nov 1973. 2 other dummies were placed about America’s 1st space station including Commander Gerald Carr in the Lower Body Negative Pressure Device & one for Edward Gibson in the waste compartment. The good news was the trio had 84 days to get things organized. I guess it gets boring after 59 days in space; can’t blame Skylab 3 crew Alan Bean, Owen Garriott & Jack Lousma for their hijinks! Sadly, Skylab 4 had no following crew to prank as it was the final crewed mission to the space station, which later came crashing down to Earth in 1979.