One of KOCE's Earliest Space-Themed Broadcasts
On May 1, 1974, KOCE broadcast Skylab 4: The Final Manned Mission.
Skylab 4, for the uninitiated (your humble writer included), was (ironically) NASA’s third Skylab mission. The Commander of the mission, Lt. Col Gerald Carr, was from Santa Ana, and was the featured subject of the special.
According to our viewer’s guide:
While circling the earth at an altitude of 270 miles, the astronauts performed 58 technical and scientific experiments. Biomedicine, astronomy, solar physics and engineering were the areas in which their studies were concentrated.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Exactly the kind of stuff you’d expect was happening on a NASA mission.
And it is, except this mission was known for something else – a distinction all its own: The crew is the only one to have staged a strike in space.
It seems NASA didn’t schedule any breaks for the three-person team. The plan was, in fact, for all three astronauts to work 16 hours a day, every day, for 84 days.
A couple of days after Christmas, Carr wired a manifesto earthward: ‘We need more time to rest. We need a schedule that is not so packed. We don’t want to exercise after a meal. We need to get things under control.’
NASA responded with something akin to: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (maybe less smiley).
And so, on December 28, 1973, Carr cut the radio link and the Skylab 4 crew spent the day chillin’.
It seems NASA got the message. When the crew went back online, NASA agreed to meal and rest breaks, and nixed the micro-managed daily agendas in favor of task lists.
Gerald Carr passed away at age 88 in 2020. He earned many titles and honors: Col, USMC, Ret.; engineer — both mechanical and aeronautical; naval aviator, and astronaut. But perhaps his most interesting role was the brief but effective time he served as a labor rights activist.
Even now, we’re proud of our 1974 KOCE counterparts for broadcasting an interview with the only astronaut to have led a strike, or as some call it, a mutiny, in space.
This article was updated on Jan. 20, 2023.
