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A version of Skylab shown as a wet workshop. Notice the engine bell is still attached.

Wet workshop is the idea of using a spent rocket stage as a makeshift space station. A liquid-fuel rocket primarily consists of two large, airtight fuel tanks; it was realized that the fuel tanks could be retrofitted into the living quarters of a space station. A large rocket stage would reach a low Earth orbit and undergo later modification. This would make for a cost-effective reuse of hardware that would otherwise have no further purpose, but the in-orbit modification of the rocket stage could prove difficult and expensive.

A wet workshop is contrasted with a "dry workshop", where the empty upper stage is internally outfitted on the ground before launch with a human habitat and other equipment. Then the upper stage is launched into orbit by a sufficiently powerful rocket.^[1]

Concepts [edit]

Apollo-derived [edit]

Wernher von Braun proposed a wet workshop concept for launch on the Saturn V. His design modified the S-II second stage of the Saturn V stack to allow it to be used as living space once reaching orbit. Since the S-IC lower stage of the Saturn V cannot reach orbit on its own, the S-II would have to fire, and then vent out any remaining fuel once it reached orbit. To allow this, the floors of the station were made of an open grid which allowed the fuel to pass through easily to the piping at the bottom of the tanks. The structure also presented convenient hand and footholds.

Since the entire fuel load would be needed to reach orbit, additional life support equipment could not be stored inside the S-II during launch. von Braun's design placed all of this ancillary equipment in a large cylindrical carrier, which would be carried on top of the S-II stage in place of the S-IVB normally placed there. After reaching orbit and venting, a large access hatch in the top of the S-II's hydrogen tank would be opened. The cylindrical cargo module would then be inserted hydraulically into the tank through this opening, sealed, and then the tank would be repressurized to form a large living space. Power would be provided by solar cells lining the outside of the S-II.

During the 1960s, as the Apollo mission transitioned from development to launch, a number of groups inside NASA were studying the post-Apollo era. Many ideas for continuing use of the existing Saturn hardware were proposed, and some of these were collected under the "Apollo X" banner. But by the time Apollo X was starting to look for funding, the Saturn V lines had been planned to shut down after producing just enough Saturn V's for the moon missions alone. However, during the same period of time, on-orbit testing of the Apollo systems was proceeding much better than expected, and a number of proposed shake-down missions were no longer required. This left a small number of Saturn IB launchers available for use.

The Saturn IB stack consists of two main stages, the booster and a S-IVB stage on top, both of which needed to be fired in order to reach orbit. An S-IVB stage could be modified in a fashion similar to von Braun's original proposals, making a smaller but perfectly usable station. In this case the equipment would be carried on top of the S-IVB in the location normally reserved for the Lunar Module, but the lack of a large access port meant it would have to remain there instead of being inserted into the tank. Considerable design work along these lines was carried out.

Ironically, when the later Apollo missions were canceled (18 through 20), a supply of Saturn V's became available. By this time so much work had been done on the S-IV-derived system that they decided to continue along those lines instead. The Saturn V had enough power to place the station in orbit without firing the S-IVB, and the design was flown as the Skylab "dry workshop", even though it retained many of its original wet workshop design features, notably the open mesh flooring.

Another project involving the Apollo-derived wet workshop was the proposed Manned Venus Flyby.

Shuttle-derived [edit]

Several similar conversions of the Space Shuttle's external tank (ET) were also studied. During launch the ET accelerated to about 98% of orbital speed before being dropped and deliberately spun in order to increase its drag. A number of people^[who?] proposed keeping the ET attached to the Shuttle all the way into orbit, bleeding off any remaining fuel through the Space Shuttle Main Engines, which would have been "left open". One such test had been scheduled, but was canceled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster dramatically changed safety rules.

The ET would have provided a huge working space, and one major problem with various wet workshop designs is what to do with all of it. The oxygen tank, the smaller of the two tanks inside the ET, was itself much larger than the entire Space Station Freedom even in its fully expanded form. Additionally, getting access to the interior was possible though "manholes" used for inspection during construction, but it was not clear if realistic amounts of building materials could have been inserted into the tank after reaching orbit. Nevertheless the problem was studied repeatedly.

A similar concept, the "Aft Cargo Carrier", was studied by Martin Marietta in 1984. This consisted of a large cylindrical cargo container bolted onto the bottom of the ET, which offered the same volume as the Space Shuttle orbiter's cargo bay, but would be able to carry wider, bulkier loads. The same basic layout was also used as the basis for a short-duration station design. Although not a wet workshop in the conventional sense, the station piggybacks on the fuel tank and is therefore related to some degree.

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Source
• Abstracts of External Tank Technical Reports