skylab

ISS has to periodically increase its orbit and it already brought down Skylab and to some extend Mir.

The ISS is (and Mir and Skylab were) only half of that altitude and even that would survive for years before naturally re-entering due to orbital decay from atmospheric drag.

Tiangong 1 could be compared to Skylab but is still most certainly a space station.

There's also a reason why the Saturn V was not flown beyond the Skylab mission or why no more were built.

I currently work at Studio Skylab and it's a great place to be which is really looking to expand.

Deke Slayton was the only Skylab astronaut to die of a brain tumor.

For all that it's important, though, it's comical that we haven't put some spinning Skylab space stations up to find out.

The cold war shifted away from the space race, and we built skylab instead.

This has been done before in the US Skylab program and the Soviet Salyut and Mir programs, although never in the same scale as the ISS.

The ISS was designed to be built up over several years, over several launches, with each launch costing much less than Skylab but obviously more overall.

Yeah I know, and we broke Skylab on the way up, didn't we?

It was a design decision that favoured amortizing costs for an age that couldn't afford another Skylab.

Skylab had problems with solar panels and heat shielding which was fixed by spreading a huge blanket of reflective material.

Skylab has an awesomely talented team, a great culture and has digital innovation at its core.