A space station fell to Earth. An Australian boy brought it to San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

A space station fell to Earth. An Australian boy brought it to San Francisco

sfgate.com

111 pointswallflower44 comments

When I was a child I had a pop up book of Skylab complete with movable panels. I played with that thing so much it basically got destroyed.

In the article it mentioned that a Brazilian baby was named Skylab in the hopes that NASA would help raise it. I tried to find more info on the person but a cursory search didn't yield anything on it. I wonder how they're doing today.

If I were your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/cousin/friend, on your next birthday I would buy you this: https://www.amazon.com/Skylab-Americas-Station-Hallmark-Pop-...

But since I'm not, if you can afford it (apologies I know nothing about you) I suggest you buy it. It seems like you enjoyed it, and it would "bring you joy" (a la Marie Kondo) to have this in your bookcase and go through it with any sons/daughters/nephews/nieces/etc.

I'm pretty sure that's the book! Thanks for the link. Interesting that it's going for that much. I might get it for my niece one day.

Matt Parker (Standup Maths) has a Labrador retriever named Skylab.

> The U.S.’s Skylab embarrassment over Australia resulted in no human injuries. President Jimmy Carter apologized for the mess. The city of Esperance issued NASA a $400 littering ticket that they never paid.

dude, just pay the fine and frame the ticket.

yup! fine was paid, just not by NASA.

The fine has been paid [0]. A host for a radio station in US collected the money and paid the fine on NASAs behalf in 2019.

[0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/skylabs-remains

Then, perhaps formally that was a donation, instead of a fine?

Por que no los dos?

With or without interest?

Why wouldn't they just pay it? Would there be any negative consequences?

Not really for this one incident, but you don't really want to set a precedent if anything bigger ever happens. A spacefaring nation doesn't want to establish the idea it could owe financial liability for it to someone else.

> don't really want to set a precedent

Or sensibly they want to set the precedent that AU$400 is the appropriate amount!

Well Russia did eventually pay Canada the cleanup bill for the nuclear pollution of Kosmos-954. Precedent is already there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

And as the article says, states are already obligated to do so under the outer space treaty.

admission of guilt, liability

Indeed, and perhaps fear of precedent?

My favorite was Taco Bell putting a 10’ x 10’ box off the coast of Australia and running an ad saying if Skylab hits it, everyone in the US gets a free taco.

I recall that promotion was for the Mir reentry (unless they did that twice)?

I can't imagine a single person I've met in my life who would be as Zen as this bloke was as a kid. One wonders what engenders such quality in a person.

Esperance is a hell of a place. There's a kind of void there that gets inside.

What do you mean by this, kinda vague?

I've been there. It is an extremely remote place, where the locals all know each other and it is very beautiful but with some of the worlds most dangerous sharks paying regular visits to the beach. And when you look across that beach, you are literally gazing off into the horizon of the end of the Earth. There's literally nothing between Esperance and Antarctica.

Its no wonder the place breeds the silent types.

Isn't it true that you can kinda redirect or "punch" sharks in the nose to get them to fuck off?

No, they are too fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUMgSIXwFr8

Its definitely "happened" tho, no?

I think it depends if you see them first or they see you first.

i think it means the effects of living in a small community far from the rest of civilization. where i am from people living away from cities, especially in the mountains also have a reputation of not talking much. i think in the US too.

Not far off the coast of Esperance is a massive southern ocean slab break The Right, this and similar waves are what many of the locals grew up with:

https://youtu.be/nFA6jUdJMb8?t=497

that, and West Cape Howe, which is always good value for a spot of fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unGOmBKVo3w

Reading the article reminded me of how different a place the world I remember was in the 1970's. I think the people were different then too (due of course to the world they were surrounded by). I'm not sure what we did wrong since then.

Did we do anything wrong? Did we do anything right instead or in addition?

I still have a chunk of Skylab. Apparently the big oxygen tank was sawn up and small pieces potted in clear plastic with a commemorative card. A friend was passing through Esperance and bought on for me as a memento.

see https://imgur.com/a/WWSVTfB

and https://imgur.com/zvVZfLr

It's been in my desk drawer ever since..

The most unbelievable element, from the vantage point of 44 years later, is getting a passport expedited in under 72 hours.

You need an appointment (book min. 2 days ahead) but then you can get one there and then in the UK. I imagine this 44y ago was from a post office or similar, not mail order, too anyway?

Sorry, I’m in the US. Last time it took 10 weeks.

Growing up in India, this was a favorite story my Dad used to tell us kids. I remember sincerely wishing it fell on our school so that we'd get a holiday ! Good to know at least some kid benefited from it :)

Nice to see that he made contact again after nearly 40 years.

This is a cool story

No mention of the sky lab mutiny, which of course never was a mutiny, because in space everyone goes full star trek.

Well, no, that's beyond the scope of the article. It also doesn't mention e.g. the origin of the Skylab project, which was more or less "what else can we do with the hardware we developed for landing on the moon and with the people we hired for it?". But, Wikipedia to the rescue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab

> NASA management was concerned about losing the 400,000 workers involved in Apollo after landing on the Moon in 1969

400,000!

I didn't realize it was only occupied for 24 weeks; the ISS trounced that by err. not order of magnitude. It's been up for 25 years now.

Didn't The Simpsons already do this?

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