Seventy-nine tons boring its way through the atmosphere like a shooting star,” the ABC network in Australia told its viewers. In New York City, “Skylab Survivor” T-shirts and helmets with targets on them were sold in Times Square.įILE: This overhead view of the Skylab Space Station was taken from the Departing Skylab Command/Service Module during the Skylab 2's final fly-around inspection.

The Oakland Tribune joked that A’s fans shouldn’t be too worried about space station parts injuring anyone at the Coliseum, a reference to Oakland’s league-worst 3,984 per-game attendance average. In the Philippines, a man reportedly died of a heart attack while waking from a nightmare screaming, “Skylab, Skylab.” In Brussels, the city readied air horns to warn residents to shelter. A Brazilian woman named her baby “Skylab” in the hopes that NASA would help raise it. On the British coast, tourists took cover in caves.

An agency report estimated that the chances of part of the nearly 80 tons of molten metal hitting a major city were about 1 in 5, and the likelihood of the falling spacecraft hitting a human, 1 in 152.

Earth view from space station