posted 05-14-2023 12:05 AM               

Astronaut now on space station recalls Skylab launch 50 years ago

Stephen Bowen remembers seeing Skylab fly overhead.

At eight years old, Bowen's experience watching the United States' first space station cross the night sky fueled his interest in spaceflight. Little did he know then, it would also play a big part of his future.

posted 05-14-2023 08:45 PM               

I wrote to my state's Congressman and was able to get a car pass so my parents and I could watch the launch just north of the VAB, directly across from LC-39A. I remember seeing the engines ignite, and the Saturn V slowly rising from the pad, but no sound! After a few seconds the sound 'hit' us, and it was loud.

I had a 35mm camera and was taking almost continuous photos, but every few seconds I paused so I could look at the Saturn V as it rose into the partly cloudy sky. It wasn't until we returned to the motel and watched the news that we learned about the anomaly and that the launch of the first crew would not occur the next day. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement! But I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to see the last Saturn V launch.

As fate would have it, four years later I was working for McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company in Huntington Beach, CA which was the company, and location, where the main part of Skylab, the S-IVB, was designed, integrated and tested. And 15 years after the launch of Skylab, in 1988, I began working on the next United States Space Station, which at the time was called Space Station Freedom, leading the teams that designed the Airlock and Segment S2 of the Integrated Truss Assembly.