Welcome to You Ask Andy

Tammy Turley, age 14, of Zionsville, Indiana, for her question:

 What are the functions of skylab?

Congratulations to Judith S. Miles, high school student of Lexington,  lass. She suggested a Skylab project to discover whether a spider can spin its complicated silken web in space. Arabella, the talented spider, made rather a mess of her first attempt. Then she mastered the tricks of zero gravity and became the celebrated star of the show. For this artistic arachnid's second web was a perfect copy of those she learned to spin down on the earth.

Tie rejoice to report that 19 projects on board Skylab were suggested by high school students. Six other students expect to solve their original questions with data relayed from the orbiting space lab. Already Arabella has demonstrated to Judith Miles and the whole world that a spider can spin a standard web while orbiting 236 miles above the old familiar ground.

Another student experiment is designed to show whether radishes can root down and shoot up in zero gravity. Other student projects are ex¬pected to answer interesting questions about quasars and pulsars, T Tauri stars and to investigate a region of the Solar System for signs of a . possible planet between Mercury and the Sun.

Meantime astronaut scientists work on hundreds of investigations, organized in five main categories. Biology projects test the survival and well being of people and animals in space. The astronauts are trained in medicine. They monitor their own breathing, pulse and blood pressure. Other tests, evaluated by grounded space scientists, test the effects of zero gravity on human muscles, organs, bones and blood.

The earth resources category includes 132 investigations for 75 differ¬ent nations. Skylab's fabulous cameras and sensors gather data from 75 per cent of the earth's surface. This area includes 90 per cent of the human population and 80 per cent of the world's food producing land. Photographs in visible light, infrared and micro wavelengths are relayed down to earth every five days.

When compared, this data reveals such items as soil moisture. One survey pinpoints suitable regions for growing wheat or dates. Another detects areas where beetles have infested the mountain pines of South Dakota. Naturally the earth pictures also yield precise details to modern snap makers.

Another category is directed to the upper atmosphere, another to the sun and its neighborhood. Skylab has 57 major plus many more minor super¬fine instruments to work on 270 important investigations. Sixty of these projects are in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics.

Many earth materials and chemical reactions are tested in Skylab's wonderful workshop. For example, under zero conditions flames tend to fan outward from a fire. One investigation hopes to show that, in space, alloys and crystals form more perfect and perhaps more durable molecular structures. Obviously the functions of Skylab are too numerous to mention one by one. Obviously many of them will yield priceless new information.

 

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