Saturday marks the 40th Anniversary of Ed Gibson’s, Alpha Zeta/Rochester 1959, journey into space as the Science Pilot for Skylab 4, the final manned flight to the Skylab space station.
Gibson, Commander Gerald Carr and Command Module Pilot William Pogue, were launched in their Apollo capsule on Nov. 16, 1973. They docked at the orbiting laboratory for a record 84 days, working on a variety of experiments.
Gibson’s focus was on the six camera telescopes pointing at the sun, stars, and the comet Kohoutek. He also participated, with the other astronauts, doing daily medical experiments and gathering data on how their bodies adapted to their weightless environment. Gibson also participated in three two-man space walks, spending a total of 15 hours and 17 minutes outside of the lab. The main goal of the space walks was to change film in the telescope cameras, but on two occasions they filmed the comet Kohoutek.
The astronauts left Skylab and returned to earth Feb. 8, 1874. They had orbited the earth 1,214 times, traveled 34.5 million miles and brought back 1,719 pounds of film, data and biomedical specimens for scientific study.
Gibson was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1965 as part of a scientist-astronaut group, Astronaut Group 4. He first served on the support crew of Apollo 12 before his work on the development of the Skylab space station. Gibson resigned from NASA in December 1974, but returned in 1977 to preside over the selection of scientist-astronaut candidates. He resigned from NASA for the last time in October 1982.
Gibson was born Nov. 8, 1936, in Buffalo, N.Y. He was a graduate of Kenmore Senior High School, and in 1959 received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Rochester. In 1960 he received a Master of Science in Engineering (Jet Propulsion) from the California Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in Engineering with a minor in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1964. He also received an honorary doctorate of science from Wagner College in 1974.
Gibson was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Oct. 4, 1997.