🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec29.175754.24170@samba.oit.unc.edu> cecil@physics.unc.edu writes:
>>...the ASTP payload was *not* a "full up" CSM; indeed, it was
>>the lightest CSM ever flown manned, because it needed almost no main-engine
>>fuel for its mission...
>
>A question: was a fully fueled CSM, flown in the ASTP launch inclination,
>capable of reboosting Skylab?  Was it structurally feasible?

I don't think the ASTP orbit was close enough to Skylab's to make this
practical.  I believe it was structurally possible.

Mind you, most of the science community thought the hardware and money
that went into ASTP would be better spent on another Skylab crew... and
they were probably right.  That might have provided a suitable opportunity.

>If so, when
>was the decision made not to reboost after the AST-part of the mission was
>over?

It's important to bear in mind that, with program plans and air-drag
forecasts as they were in the mid-70s, it was clear that Skylab would
not re-enter until well after the shuttle was flying and something
could be done about it.  There wasn't any feeling of urgency about
reboosting Skylab.  Then the US scrapped its remaining manned-spaceflight
capability, the shuttle schedule slipped repeatedly, and air drag
ran well ahead of schedule...  The Skylab rescue mission progressively
moved up in the shuttle manifest until it was scheduled for only the
second flight, but even that wasn't good enough in the end.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry