The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 6

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, im THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR PAGE 6 TIIHFE MONTHS' Splashdown Ends Longest Space Odyssey Wives Cheered By Splashdown hi I TV i I V- f. ft; i i I i III" 111 I 1 i 1 .1 MM j-- i Continued From Page 1 landed," Lousma said at one point. 'But my feet feel kind of heavy." Bean and Lousma also talked excitedly of the fireball their spacecraft created as it smashed into the atmosphere at a high speed. "You should have seen the swirl in that fireball," said Lousma. said Bean, it was so bright I couldn't read" some of the spacecraft instruments.

All three of the men could be heard laughing as they waited for the USS New Orleans to pull alongside. They had landed on target but six miles from this recovery carrier. THE ASTRONAUTS remained aboard their spacecraft until a crane hauled it aboard the New Orleans because doctors feared they would be too unsteady to be plucked from the water by helicopter. In a telegram sent to the New Orleans, President Nixon congratulated the astronauts and said their record mission "provided the basis for a quantum jump in human knowledge." William C. Schneider, director of the skylab program, said the astronauts surpassed their scientific objectives by more than 150 per cent.

Schneider said the mission "can only be described in superlatives." Fast-Talked Into It Birmingham, England (UPI) Vicar David Edwards had to do some fast talking to get Robert Thompson and his bride, Gay, married. Thompson arrived late at the Yard-ly Parish Church and was faced with the prospect of having to wait until the next day to get married because the legal deadline for weddings is 6 p.m. But the Rev. Mr. Edwards cut some verses from the hymns and talked as fast as he could and the wedding was finished with 90 seconds to spare.

AWAIT RETURN AT HOME OF MR. Owen K. Garriott, Mrs. Alan L. Bean and style home to watch the splashdown on television sets in the den and living room.

Mrs. Lousma and her children watched the splashdown separately in a bedroom. WASN'T that just great?" she said as she emerged after the splashdown. "They've been gone so long you'd think they wouldn't know the way home." "My first reaction when he splashed down was that it's the culmination of a dream he's had for 7V4 years. I'm sure he's just as thankful as I am." It was Lousma's first space flight.

Mrs. Garriott, whose scientist husband also was a space rookie, said she was watching television when she saw the parachutes of the spacecraft. "IT WAS beautiful. You could see it through the clouds." When the capsule first landed, she said, "It came down upside down. I don't knew if it bothered him, but it sure bothered me." by the Skylab 1 WIVES OF SKYLAB CREW From Left: Mrs.

Space Center, Houston (AP) "I've had enough of this women's lib for three months," said Sue Bean yesterday after watching her astronaut husband Alan splash down in the Pacific Ocean. "I'd like to have him home for a while," said Mrs. Bean, standing next to her daughter, Amy Sue, 10. "I was thinking it's been a long three months and I'll be glad when he gets back Thursday night." AS ASTRONAUTS Bean, Owen K. and Jack Lousma ended their 59-day flight in the Skylab 2, their wives waited at their respective homes near the Johnson Space Center here.

"I'll be so happy to see him home. I won't even ask him to empty the garbage for a whole week," said Helen Garriott as she stood in her front yard next to her "mother, Mrs. Glen A. Walker of Enid, Okla. About 40 friends showed up at the Lousma's rambling split-level, ranch- Skylab Fails To Top Old Time-In-Air Mark space duration re Dr.

James Fletcher, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Admistration, said Skylab 2 "may prove to be the most fruitful" of all of the NASA space missions. THE ASTRONAUTS returned with a cargo of priceless film, magnetic tape and experiments that may give mankind new basic knowledge about, the sun, the earth and man himself. They also returned with a new space endurance record 59 days, 11 hours and 9 minutes. This more than doubles the record of the men of Skylab 1, the first crew to live aboard America's orbiting space laboratory. Sailors on the deck of this recovery carrier sighted the capsule, swinging gently from its three orange-and-white parachutes, as it descended through scattered clouds toward the white-capped ocean surface.

The cone-shaped spacecraft turned over, with its point down, and floated in the water upside down. INSIDE, the astronauts pushed a lever which inflated three plastic balloons, which forced the spacecraft to right itself. Helicopters from the recovery ship quickly hovered over the, bobbing spacecraft. Within six minutes after splashdown, swimmers leaped into the sea and attached a flotation collar. THE ASTRONAUTS will be subjected to intensive medical examinations for the next two days as the New Orleans cruises toward San Diego.

Doctors are anxious to run scores of tests on the men to learn more about the effects of long-term space flight. Space physicians said the men of Skylab 2 have fully adapted to living in the weightlessness of space and may need weeks to readapt to the gravity of earth. "We're going to see a very un-stea9y crew once they get up on their feet," said Dr. Royce Hawkins, chief of the astronauts' doctors. "They're going to have to take it slow." 7t iwinrs said the astronauts reached a plateau of space adaptation never before achieved.

MUSCLES, 1 I I the heart, which do not have to labor against the tuc of gravity, dcconditlon in weightlessness, melting away from the lack of work. Hawkins said decondltloning among the Skylab 2 astronauts continued until about the 39th day of their mission. At that point, he said, they reached a plateau and apparently were adapted to weightlessness. Bean, Garriott and Lousma gathered far more scientific information than experts had predicted for. their marathon mission.

They spent 305 hours observing the. sun, 105 more than planned, and oV lected more than 77,500 solar They conducted 39 earth-resources photo passes, 13 more than planned, aad gathered more than 12,000 photos and more than 18 miles of computer tape from special photosensors. The next United States space flight will bp the Skylab mission, set to start on Nov. 11. The 56-day mission will end the Skylab program.

A Grievious Mis-Steak Nashville, Tenn. (AP) Firemen assigned to Engine Company 19 were about ready to sit down to a dinnecj)f steak, corn, potatoes and biscuits Monday when the alarm rang. After fighting a fire in a nearby public housing project for more than an hour, the then-hungry firemen to their station expecting to finish the meal. The corn, potatoes and biscuits were still on the stove, Capt. McGonigal said.

But the 14 steaks Jq'tt in the oven were gone. "I guess that's indicative of whatfg going on with the economy th still-hungry captain remarked. -rn 3331 STORE COUPON Save7onanv 7 Fleischmann's I Margarine Bean of 69 days, 15 minutes and 59 seconds two missions. Old by Charles (Pete) 49 days, 3 hours, 38 and 36 seconds on spacewalk outside orbiting craft 6 31 minutes set by and Lousma. spacewalking on 13 hours, 43 minutes three walks more entire Gemini program.

pictures ever taken in from orDit- 77,600 Houston (UPI) The two-month journey of the Skylab 2 crew was the longest time men have spent in space, but it didn't top the record of two pilots of a light airplane who flew over Nevada nearly 15 years ago. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Robert Timm and John Cook were aloft for 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and five seconds. They flew the equivalent distance of six times around the world, being I and provisioned in the air. SKYLAB 2 astronauts Alan Bean, Owen K. Garriott and Jack R.

Lousma, howev-err set a long list of records. The major marks were: Most revolutions of the earth, 858. Most miles flown, 24,423,122. Longest time in space, 59 days, 11 hours, 9 minutes and 4 seconds. Previous marks of 28 days, 49 minutes and 49 seconds crew.

the sun 93 minutes. FOOD PRICES GOOD THRU SEPT. 30th. QUANTITY set Individual cord by hours, 53 on mark set Conrad of minutes four missions. LONGEST an hours, Garriott Most hours one mission in than the Most frames.

Most data earth from and tape. First man around the ever taken of the space, 16,800 pictures 18 miles of recording to pedal bicycle world, by Bean in (AP Wirtplwlo) AND MRS. EUGENE CERNAN Mrs. Jack R. Lousma Then catching sight of a neighbor, Mrs.

Garriott shouted happily. "Come on over!" The Garriotts have four children, Randall, 18, Robert, 16, Richard, 12, and Linda, 7. The Beans have two children, Clay, 18, a student at Texas Tech at Lubbock, and Amy Sue, who said her biggest gripe yesterday was she was made to go to school instead of staying home and and awaiting the late-afternoon splashdown. BEAN NOW has the all-time record for length of space flight and his wife was asked if she would like him to hang up his suit. "I'd like for him to," she replied.

"But I don't think he has that in mind." Mrs. Garriott was asked if she was ready for her husband to make another flight. "I wouldn't want to go through this again right now," she replied. "Not tomorrow. Next week maybe." STORE COUPON product of UfmHtaulStmuh 7 iiiiiiw 7 lb 'i Cmdrm in tfii; pifF MmtimSBM 1 rf3 RIGHTS RESERVED OUR DELI ia SLICIO PAN SAUSAGE e09e WIENERS 79e IONEIESS ROILED IOSTON FROM PORK I ICKIK ICKIICH SUCIO ii.

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