Blue Dot

Blue Dot: Remembering America's space station: Skylab @ 50 Pt. 2

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Skylab 4 astronaut Ed Gibson operating the space station's solar telescope in orbit, 1973.

NASA

Host Dave Schlom concludes our two-part look back at the first and only exclusively American space station, Skylab, which was crewed by three teams of astronauts in 1973. In this episode, we hear from David Hitt, author of the seminal book Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, which he co-wrote with Skylab astronauts Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin. Then we get to hear from the last man on Earth who lived and worked on the orbiting station for 84 days, astronaut Ed Gibson. An under-told and underappreciated part of space history, Skylab stands as one of the most important stepping stones in our quest to learn to live and explore beyond Earth.

Dave Schlom

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.

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Matt Fidler

Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.

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