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Over the past few days, most of you have been sharing your epic New Year's Eve and holiday stories with your friends and coworkers. No story you tell, however, will be as epic as Gerry Carr's, Bill Pogue's, and Ed Gibson's.
If the names don't immediately ring a bell, those men were the crew of Skylab 4 and spent their New Year's Eve orbiting around earth. It wasn't exactly as much fun as it sounds though. While people on Earth were bringing in 1974 with booze and kisses, the Skylab 4 crew were dealing with a mutiny while in orbit. Click through this mini gallery for more on the interesting incident.
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Space Facts2 of 3
Skylab was a space station program that only had launches of three separate crews. The original launch of the station was known as Skylab 1, with the following two crews being labeled Skylab 2 and 3.
The first two crews paved the way for the Skylab 4 crew to be able to spend an entire 84 days in space. This intensive mission - which called for a total of 6,051 hours - did a number on the three men and they eventually found themselves over-exhausted. When they complained about the grueling hours and being overworked, the people at NASA mission control disagreed and disregarded their claims. They told the men to work through their scheduled relaxation times in attempt to get caught up.
A few days before New Year's Eve, the men of Skylab 4 had finally had enough and did something about it...
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The crew of Skylab 4 contacted NASA ground control and notified them that they would be taking an impromptu day off and immediately disconnected radio communications. The men used the time to enjoy some stress free relaxation and to enjoy their surroundings in orbit.
Eventually, the men on the crew spoke with NASA and were able to work out a compromise. Routine chores would be done on an "if time allows" basis and mission control would also back off during the times assigned for the men to rest.
With the reduced workload, the astronauts were happier and their performance improved. When the mission was said and done, everyone involved was satisfied. However, all three of the men never flew again.