[Apollo, Skylab]

EXTENSIVE CHRONOLOGY OF SPACECRAFT FROM APOLLO TO SKYLAB, SIGNED BY A MEMBER OF EVERY CREWED APOLLO FLIGHT AND THE COMMANDERS OF EACH SKYLAB MISSION - SIGNED BY 8 MOONWALKERS

A complete set of the hardcover, NASA-issued The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology is a rare find, made more so by the several signatures of astronauts who took the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon!

In addition to the complete Apollo spacecraft chronologies, this library includes authoritative texts relating to SKYLAB and the APOLLO-SOYUZ TEST PROJECT.

Skylab, America's first space station, fulfilled the dream of Wernher von Braun to build an orbiting station where people could live and work in space for extended periods. The Orbital Workshop (OWS), the largest component of Skylab, was built according to Von Braun and his team's brilliant idea of using a spent S-IVB rocket stage. There were two approaches for getting the workshop into orbit; first was known as the "wet" workshop, consisting of a multiple docking adapter, which permitted up to five spacecraft to be docked to Workshop at once; an airlock module attached to the OWS; and Crew quarters in the S-IVB hydrogen tank, with two wings covered with solar cells. These components would all be added after the crew had docked with the station in space, replaced all of the residual propellants from the S-IVB stage with breathable oxygen, before outfitting the tank as a space station. Another simpler method, known as the "dry" workshop, involved launching a fully outfitted Workshop — this approach was not used because all Saturn V launch vehicles were already earmarked for the Apollo programs, and thus the more complicated "wet" approach had to be used. 

Conducted 50 years ago on the exact date of this sale, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) signaled the symbolic end of the Space Race that started with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. It was the first joint US-Soviet space flight, during which the US Apollo Command/Service Module docked with the Soviet Soyuz 19 capsule, and the two crews: US astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, and Deke Slayton; and Russian Cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valeri Kubasov, visited each other’s ships, shared meals, and conducted experiments together. ASTP was the last crewed US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981. The Cosmonauts have signed their names and inscribed in English“V. Kubasov” and “Leonov.”