Talk:Skylab 4

Merge discussion

See merge discussion at Stand-alone or section about possibly merging Skylab mutiny to this article. Regards -Fnlayson (talk) 20:21, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

• Merge did not happen and should be separate. Telecine Guy (talk) 06:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Put balance to the "strike issue" To was too one side.Telecine Guy (talk) 07:02, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• Moved "strike issue" to a Dec. 28 tab, as it should not be in with normal text. Telecine Guy (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The merge discussion noted by Fnlayson above has been archived, it can be found here. (fyi) - wolf 02:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Merge now carried out. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:15, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

About that communications break

See also Talk:Skylab controversy#Dubious period without comms — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The first mention of a communications break I have found in extensive research comes in 1980 when Balbacky wrote the Harvard Business School piece "A Strike in Space". Even Cooper '76, the first use of "strike," doesn't mention that the radio was off. No such event took place. The sources presently are contradictory - saying that there was a period of 90 minutes without communications (there was no such period), and that there was a single pass over a single ground station (which takes about 10 minutes) during which there were no communications. We have, in retrospect, gone back over the transcripts and found at least one time when there was a missed pass over a ground station, but this was not cause for concern. Gibson's comments about a communications break come in response to an inquiry about the thoroughly-debunked myth of a mutiny, and are an attempt at a plausible explanation. This week's BBC article quotes an obvious error by Gibson: "'The word 'strike' went at lightspeed throughout the control room and out into the news media, who feasted on that,' Ed says.", except "strike" does not appear in any newspaper, magazine, or journal articles about the mission until Cooper '76. This is Gibson's re-telling 47 years after the event, and he was neither in the control room nor privy to everything the media reported at the time, since his news was heavily filtered by Mission Control. There was a press conference with the astronauts on January 4, 1974, at which one could reasonably expect a question about a communications break if there had been one in late December. There was no such question, though they were certainly grilled about productivity. I have yet to see a source reliable to support a notable break in communications during the mission. -- ke4roh (talk) 20:09, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, we also have Carr's account in 2000 [1], page 48 "One of the things we did is we got careless with our radios and we forgot to configure for one of our passes, so when we went AOS [acquisition of signal] over one of the sites, people on the ground called us and we didn't answer them. So the press just thought that was wonderful." Reading around that, this could have been even the week before (Carr talks of segmenting their work into 10 days cycles, each 10th day meant to be a day off, and that by this point they had missed 2-3 days off and were given this on). Even Gibson in 2000 recalled in the same way [2]. (There's also one for Pogue but the incident didn't come up). The problem is that we just simply don't know what date that was, we're being drawn to something before Dec 30th (a known fixed date) and the myth's Dec 28th. --Masem (t) 20:50, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, This reddit post at /r/badhistory provides a lot of links that tried to debunk the myth. They point to the Scribd sources [3] that include not only the PAO (public affairs office) transcripts but also the tech channel ones too. --Masem (t) 21:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

The break in communications and the surrounding events are referenced many times in the article, there is even a subsection on its consequences. Are all those citations spurious, in the sense that the source material is unrelated to any break in communications? If so, then what did trigger those surrounding events and consequences? I think that needs clarifying before we can follow up too much on the OR one one individual investigator and start hacking the section about for this reason. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:31, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

City myth, metropolitan fable?

@Eric: regarding this edit you made to "The strike or mutiny myth" section, how is "urban legend" not considered "normal vocab[ulary]"...? Thanks - wolf 21:25, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I think the use of straightforward vocabulary is preferable to using idiomatic language, especially in an encyclopedia article. I find the urban to be inappropriate in most cases where the term "urban legend" is used. The term comes across to me as a cliché, coming from either laziness or from limited knowledge of vocabulary. WP:CLICHE might apply. Eric ^talk 14:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Except that "speculation" doesn't capture what "urban legend" implies, a theory (likely mistaken) that propagates via word of mouth, which is exactly what the Skylab "mutiny" was. It's a very well defined term. --Masem (t) 14:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Have to agree with Masem here (which is largely why I brought this up). I hope those who wrote this article won't find Eric's response here to be condescending or insulting. - wolf 01:01, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, let's hope that no one who comes here to collaborate on an encyclopedia is looking for ways to feel offended by critiques of their vocabulary choices. Eric ^talk 03:21, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, I didn't say "looking for ways to feel offended", though when one is called lazy and stupid, they wouldn't have far to look for offense. But as I didn't write this, it doesn't apply to me, so I'm not offended. Just as I hope you're not offended if your edit is reverted. - wolf 04:45, 24 October 2021 (UTC)