This video was made possible by Squarespace. Build your website for 10% off at Squarespace.com/HAI. There are a lot of frontiers out there—Canada,
Kansas—but space is the final frontier… that I’m mentioning. The United States, of course, was the first
to the moon in 1969. The US is no stranger to winning, no country
has won more Superbowl’s, but after the moon landings the country wanted to continue
being the best in space. Mainly, they wanted to prove that humans could
live for extended periods in space without dying in preparation for the imminent mission
to mars taking off in 1989… taking off in 1995… taking off whenever Elon Musk stops
tweeting about mason jars. NASA launched Skylab into space on a Saturn
V rocket in 1973. The station was essentially a scientific lab
in the sky built to house those who would break the record for the longest time spent
in space and it was pretty plush. With about 1,600 square feet of living space
for three people, Skylab was quite literally larger than the average New York City apartment. I guess you can say Manhattan real estate
prices really are astronomica… oh come on writer that’s just pathetic! Skylab was built to carry out experiments
in space, but on another level, the mission as a whole was an experiment on long-term
living in orbit. There were subtle designs choices made to
make Skylab feel more homely—each astronaut had their own bedroom, they would eat together
around a communal table, and in keeping the American governmental tradition as making
things as complicated and confusing as possible, they named the first mission to the station
Skylab 2. Those astronauts launched on May 25th, 1973
and stayed in orbit for 28 days and then, soon after, on July 28th, Skylab 3, the second
mission, launched which lasted a longer 59 days. Then came Skylab 4, the third Skylab Mission. This would be the last and longest of the
three missions. It launched on November 16th, 1973 and before
the astronauts even arrived at the station, their schedules were packed with all the experiments
NASA wanted to complete before Skylab was closed for good. Each day on the station was worth about $70
million or as an American would call it, the cost of an average hospital visit so the crew
was scheduled not down to the hour or half hour or even minute. They were scheduled down to increments of
30 seconds. Each second of each astronauts day was worth
$270. Each toilet break was worth thousands of dollars. These were some expensive shifts—work shifts. Skylab 4 was planned to be in orbit for 84
days and, despite the longer mission length, their days were as packed as those on the
shorter Skylab 2 and 3 missions. For the first 40 days of the mission, the
crew went without a single rest day to keep up with the busy schedule. All the different scientists at NASA were
pressuring mission control to make sure their experiments would get completed before Skylab
closed and so mission control was pressuring the crew to work more and more hours. They were also tasked with completing spacewalks
but the astronauts reported that there was no pressure during these. Nonetheless, the astronauts had had enough. They just couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t that they needed space, they had
plenty of that, they just needed some time to rest. Despite mission control having a busy day
planned for the astronauts, on December 28th, 1973, the Skylab crew turned off their radios
and relaxed during the first ever strike in space. The most fascinating part of it all, though,
was that they weren’t even French. This day on strike actually generated important
data for the real experiment going on in Skylab—on how long humans could live in space. As it turned out, the strike actually improved
productivity. Despite being days behind schedule at the
beginning of the mission, the crew finished every single scheduled experiment by the end
even with the longer rest periods they negotiated during the strike. NASA used what they learned to improve crew
scheduling for future missions and today enforces mandatory rest periods on the International
Space Station. Looking back, it’s a bit unclear how purposeful
this mutiny was. The astronauts certainly did get in trouble
once they landed back on earth and none of them flew again, but NASA has been sparse
on details of this rather embarrassing moment in their history. While the crew definitely did go on strike
for a day, some say that the loss of radio contact was just due to the astronauts failing
to properly schedule their radio manning duties. Others, including much of the press at the
time, said this was a purposeful action done to spite the mission controllers. Whether this was purposeful or not, it’s
probably good it happened because it played an integral part in developing one of mankind’s
greatest triumphs—another Half as Interesting video. Now, for all legal purposes space follows
maritime law and, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,
piracy is defined as, “any illegal acts of violence or detention,” on a ship which
is what these astronauts purportedly did—they illegally detained the ship which made them
the first ever space pirates. Obviously they’re out of jobs now, and 1/3rd’s
dead, but if they do need new careers they can lay claim to the best band name ever—Space
Pirates! For this, they obviously need a website since
this is the 21st century and they obviously should build that website with Squarespace—not
because it’s called Squarespace but because it’s the best place to build any website. They have a fully customizable website builder,
beautiful designer templates, 24/7 super helpful customer support, and built in search engine
optimization which will help people find you. If you have a business or want to, you should
definitely have a website because the phone book has sort-of fallen out of fashion but
best of all, you can try Squarespace for free at squarespace.com/HAI and then, when you’re
ready to launch, use the offer code “HAI” for 10% off.
Major Tom to ground control.
Go fuck yourselves.
Yeah, totally irrational to call it Skylab II:
Skylab I
Crew: Charles C. Conrad Jr., Commander Paul J. Weitz, Pilot Joseph Kerwin, Scientist
Launch Date: May 25, 1973 Launch Time: 9:00 a.m. EDT Launch Vehicle: Saturn 1B Launch Site: Launch Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center Recovery Date: June 22, 1973 Recovery Time: 9:49 a.m. EDT Distance Traveled: 11.5 million miles Duration: 28 days, 49 minutes
Mission Highlights First manned mission. The crew rendezvoused with Skylab on the fifth orbit. After making substantial repairs, including deployment of a parasol sunshade that cooled the inside temperatures to 23.8 degrees C (75 degrees F), the workshop was in full operation by June 4. In orbit, the crew conducted solar astronomy and Earth resources experiments, medical studies and five student experiments. The mission completed 404 orbits and 392 experiment hours, as well as three EVAs totaling six hours, 20 minutes.
Mission Achievements Installed a solar shield "parasol" from scientific airlock. Released solar array wing on EVA. Doubled previous length of time in space.
It's a shitty joke if you have to pretend reality didn't happen to make it.
Very saturated with jokes about America. Not that I mind, but this didn't use to be the case in his previous videos.
That is the best commercial i ever saw! Advertisers, take note! Would watch again
This video is not really true, though. The Skylab 4 crew didn't have any kind of space strike or mutiny, as explaned in this interview with one of the astronauts. They simply forgot to switch ground station. It was first after they landed that they found out that the newspaper said "Skylab 4 crew committed space mutiny". This became something that everyone believed which simply isn't true.