Page 159 - MY STORY
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low earth orbit and look for potential commercial uses of
space (vacuum and zero gravity). It also might begin the
understanding of human capability of living in that
environment with a potential goal of travel to Mars.
The actual workshop was a refurbished S-IVB stage that
we manufactured. The liquid hydrogen tank would be the
living quarters, while the much smaller liquid oxygen
tank would be the wastebasket. One of our major
concerns was to make sure that the living quarters were
safe for habitation by the three astronauts living there for
protracted periods.
There were two major issues to resolve. First, and most
important was to make sure that there would be no fire
danger in the pure oxygen breathing environment. The
second was to make sure that there would be no
“outgassing” from volatile organic compounds (VOC’s)
that could cause physical damage to onboard humans in a
“shirtsleeve” environment.
Our engineering solution to both these problems was
simple. We recommended stripping all paint from the
Skylab interior and anodizing the aluminum surface to
provide a rich panoply of different shades of gold - a
