JSC (AV) - Skylab 4 - Crew Day Off Activities - TV 81-2 - GMT 345 - Astronauts Carr and Gibson Part 3

Description

SKYLAB 4 KINESCOPE A209 TAPE 4, PART 3 of 3 Welcome to Skylab 3. You might be wondering why I'm the only one up here the other two did not want to get in front of the camera, I guess I'm the only one without a beard. What I'd like to do is tell you a little bit about what we've done in the past week or two and then mention something to you which has been sort of unexpected to us, and I think it will be interesting to you. During the past two weeks or SO, we've done an awful lot of earth resources. We've looked back (garble) United States, and we've hoped we've learned an awful lot about our country which will be useful to us to all of us, and we've looked at a few other countries. We've been able to gather some resource information on India, Australia, Malaya, and we hope in the future to get quite a bit of information on other countries which will be useful to them. During the past week or so, something that has been kind of gratifying to us is that we have been shown to be in fairly goodmedical shape, as a matter of fact, we're bordering on being in the same condition we were at liftoff, and perhaps in some instances, just a little bit better, and we hope this trend will continue in the future. One thing we attribute it to is what we call Thornton's Revenge which we attribute a clever idea of Bill Thornton's to keep the calves of the legs in shape, and this is one thing in previous missions which they have not been able to do as well as they would have liked to. We'll show pictures of it in the future, as a matter of fact Jerry Carr is showing a picture of it already. It's been the answer to us - pretty much in the same shape we were on the ground and work hard at it, may be even a little bit better. We've done an awful lot of solar observations during the past couple of weeks. The sun has been quiet, not much activity, but we've learned (garble) above the quiet sun, studied it (garble) going to beuseful once you understand the film. We've done (garble) experiments and we have watched Kohoutek come in and start to get brighter and develop a tail now one other thing which we'd like to mention to you now - it was rather unexpected to us but I guess it's really a first Skylab is a different type program than the others. This is the first time in space history where people have used the same devices - the same spacecraft, in this case, the same space station, and so the unexpected has arisen. We have had some visitors, or should we say constant companions SL-4 Kinescope A209 - Tape 4, Part 3 of 3 Page 2 since we've been here. They helped show us the ropes since we first got here, they were (garble) companions, and we'd like to show them to you now. So, looking now at the (garble) of missions past, here they are! On your right here, we found a gentlemen, the ghost of missions past, floating around, even when we're doing medical experiments, unfortunately, they do not send any data down to Houston, and the other one was located in such a position that we now have a room in the spacecraft called the "haunted head". So, until next week, best wishes from the crew of Skylab 3. One more interesting aspects of the (garble) of the operation for Skylab was in the donning of the spacesuit (garble) as it's called. We normally have the suit situated in a foot restraint which is attached to the floor here, and we found that on the more difficult things, we'd actually get in the upper part of the suit and it turns out which it wasn't terribly difficult on the ground, to lean over in zero-G, because normally you have one-G helping you on the ground when you lean over (garble) just bend over and try to touch your toes on the ground that's sort of a gesture. Let Ed Gibson get into his suit here, Jerry assisting. We wont go through the full procedure for donning the suit, because this requires very careful following of a procedural cue card, but we did find it interesting to look at the operation and dexterity involved or lack of it as the case may be in donning the suit. the more difficult part of the operation is actually getting your head into the neck rig, and we find that we actually had to have another person, and in some cases, have another individual actually push our head down to get it down far enough to get to the neck rig, now you see here looks like there Jerry's helping him...oh, he's made it very nicely. Must be adapting to zero-G. He now has his head through the neck rig and the next operation will be to line up the material, zippers in the suit I'm gonna' cut okay now, we have Ed partially donned in the pressure (garble) assembly, or spacesuit. Jerry is going to attempt to close the two zippers. The one zipper on the inside, which you see him reaching for now. This is actually the zipper which closes up the inner part of the suit which is actually a pressure (garble) a large balloon which increases encases the upper torso, the arms and legs. Everything except the helmet, of course. And you'll notice he'll be very careful to hold his arms in the right SL-4 Kinescope A209 - Tape 4, Part 3 of 3 Page 3 place so as not to do any damage to the zipper, and it's not considered the safest thing to do for a man to don himself so we assist each other. It is possible for...Jerry's now fastening the zipper to the (garble) and then he will get another zipper and close it when he completes the zipper operation he will be (garble) which actually completes the outer garment of the pressure garment assembly, and when he completes this operation, he will have a lock, which will be provided to lock the zipper so that he it can't come unloosened. He'll be working this around and working with his fingers...of course, we don't want to damage any of these zippers, (garble) actually (garble) some things are easier and some things are harder and more difficult now in zero-G. He's now completing the suiting operation of the front part of the suit. Also attached is a safety clip to take the suits off you will notice that this is not the easiest thing in the world to do. It requires a lot of moving around and a lot of pitching and stretching of the outer layers of the suit and then we find ourselves moving all around the spacecraft as this takes place. One of the things that we missed is the weight of the upper part of the suit (garble) you will see Jerry now having quite a bit of difficulty and trying to hold the two pieces of material together. Once he gets past about the middle of the back, it gets easier And, of course, you notice how easy it is for Jerry to move around, 155 1b man plus a 30 or 40 pound suit (garble) I concur okay, we got interrupted (garble) at the end of the tape, looks like this was sort of a bust...oh well, it was a good idea at the time. Now after he pulls the two pieces of zipper together (garble) they meet each other and (garble) okay now, the zippers are fastened and that needs to be done is to take the straps and stow them properly (garble) of overlapping fabric. So there we have the pressure garment assembly without the hood donned. Subsequent to this operation, the pilot would don a secondary (garble) pack, which we put on the right leg (garble) and he would also put on a pressure control unit, which is a special device for metering the oxygen in a suit while we are inside a closed suit. SL-4 Kinescope A209 - Tape 4, Part 3 of 3 Page 4 garble) and to the same thing to the left one. These are called EVA gloves, because they have special layers on to protect your hands from thermal heating and also to prevent scuffing and tearing of the glove while working outside the vehicle. And you recognize this of course as the helmet, but actually it's a little bit more than that. You have a clear plastic helmet which is very strong plastic and you just saw him pull down called the (garble) visor assembly which is to protect your eyes from the sun and unfilterable (garble) and in addition to the (garble), there are actually garden variety- like window shade devices which can be pulled down to give you added shade and shielding from the sun, each working at a facing more or less toward the sun. This device separates from the helmet and the helmet was put on first and then the extravehicular visor assembly put on second. Okay, that terminates it, I hope we got it all there.

Collection

Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Series

Moving Images Relating to Documentary Stock Footage