Living in Space. Skylab From its launch on May 14, 1973, until the return of its third and final crew on Feb. 8, 1974, the Skylab program proved that.

Living in Space

Skylab

• From its launch on May 14, 1973, until the return of its third and final crew on Feb. 8, 1974, the Skylab program proved that humans can live and work in outer space for extended periods of time.

• Skylab served as the greatest solar observatory of its time, a microgravity lab, a medical lab, an Earth-observing facility, and, most importantly, a home away from home for its residents. The program also led to new technologies. Special showers, toilets, sleeping bags, exercise equipment and kitchen facilities were designed to function in microgravity.

• July 11, 1979, Skylab re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated, dispersing debris across a sparsely populated section of western Australia and the southeastern Indian Ocean.

• http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/skylab

International Space Station

• t is a microgravity laboratory in which an international crew of six people live and work while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes.

• The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. In that time, more than 200 people from 15 countries have visited.

• Crew members spend about 35 hours each week conducting research in many disciplines to advance scientific knowledge in Earth, space, physical, and biological sciences for the benefit of people living on our home planet.

• More than an acre of solar arrays provide power to the station, and also make it the next brightest object in the night sky after the moon. You don’t even need a telescope to see it zoom over your house.

• http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/view.cfm?country=United_States&region=Texas&city=Wichita_Falls#.VWUtwFKLV_c

• The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, enabling research and technology developments that will benefit human and robotic exploration of destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, including asteroids and Mars. It is the blueprint for global cooperation – one that enables a multinational partnership and advances shared goals in space exploration.