The United States was forming quite a bit of a space complex.

They had space stations in low earth orbit, learning how to live and work in space, eventually to establish a permanent presence in low earth orbit.

They had bases on the surface of the moon. Learning how to live and work on the lunar surface, 239,000 miles from earth, and in the case of the BLA base, not even visible from the surface of the earth.

They even had satellites far from earth at the earth-moon Lagrangian points.

All of this has been discussed in past episodes of Belitopia.

But what was left was an orbital presence above the surface of the moon. We’ve had many ships that have orbited the moon. Every Apollo mission that went to the moon, orbited the moon for some period of time. Yet, given the constraints of the Apollo command module, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for long term study of the lunar surface from lunar orbit.

This was the purpose of the Lunar Skylab program. Provide an environment for the long term study of the lunar surface from low lunar orbit.

This is…Lunar Skylab. Welcome to Belitopia.

Links

• Episode Details (https://belitopia.com/108)
• Belitopia Information from this Episode (https://belitopia.com/lunarskylab)
• Skylab + Episode (https://belitopia.com/105)
• Apollo Lunar Bases p1 Episode (https://belitopia.com/106)
• Apollo Lunar Bases p2 Episode (https://belitopia.com/107)
• Lunar Frozen Orbits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_orbit#Lunar_frozen_orbits)

Topic Introduction

The goal of the Lunar Skylab program was to send a Skylab-like space station into *lunar* orbit — 60 miles above the surface of the moon — then occupy the station with long duration crews that could study the lunar surface in greater detail, along with learn how to live in zero G far from the surface of the earth.

In real life, this program never took place. There was never a space station built beyond low earth orbit. But in Belitopia, we deployed a Skylab-like space station into Lunar orbit in order to facilitate the study of the lunar surface, to facilitate telescopic study of the space without the worry of earth’s atmosphere, and explore alternative transportation mechanisms between lunar orbit and the lunar surface.

What follows is a fictional documentary about the Lunar Skylab space station. The documentary is presented as if it takes place in the year 2040, some 70 years after these events took place. The documentary, titled “Our World in Space”, describes the construction and occupation of this lunar space station. The documentary describes these events as a future historical record of past events.

While fiction, it’s based on research into how such a station may have been constructed, what it would have been used for, and how it would have benefited humankind. Theis documentary is about the Lunar Skylab program and its impact on our long term presence in space. The Lunar Skylab program, in the world of Belitopia.

Documentary

Hello, and welcome to “Our World in Space — The Lunar Skylab Program”.

The Lunar Skylab. A space station 60 miles above the lunar surface. The first long duration human habitat to be built in space that was not in low earth orbit.

The technology wasn’t hard for the station itself. The space station was essentially identical to the Skylab I space station, except it utilized many technology improvements that were built into Skylab III.

The hard part was, how do we put it into lunar orbit? After...