Arachnonauts Settle Down to Routine Jobs
The New York Times

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Asteenauts Settle Down to
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Special to The New York Time*
:: HOUSTON,^ Aug. I? -T After
days of motion sickness, nights
of • mission-threatening mal-
functions and hours outside
rigging a new sunshade, tlire|+a
Skylab 2 astronauts were able
to settle down today for the
first time to business as usual.
It was the 11th day of a
planned two-month mission in
earth orbit for Capt. Alan L.
Bean of the Navy, Maj. Jack
R, Lousma of the Marine Corps
and Dr. Owen K. Garrioibt, a
civilian scientist.
Dr. Garriott operated the
space station’s solar telescopes
for the first time in the mission
Major Lousma had loaded film
Ini the telescope cameras dur-
ing !jj|a record 6-hour^ 31-min-
ute space “walk” yesterday
Jtar more than three hours,
Dr. (Garriott focused the tele-
scopes on the sun’s outer at
mosphere, particularly at a re-
gion slightly below the center
of the sun,’where an outburst
of small flares was occurring.
Photographs of the activity* in.
X-ray “and ultraviolet radiations
will* be retiimed by the astro|
na-uts at the ,end of the mission.
Television Shots
Late this morning, the astro-
nauts showed some television
shots of their activities aboard
the 118-foot space station, whic
is orbiting 270 miles above the
earth.    V
Captain Bean|and Maj or Lops
sma were »seen conducting a
medical experiment–on them-:
selves fto-Mneasure changes tin
their blood vessel systems re-
sulting <from long periods of
weightlessness. Each man took
turns slipping into a pressure
device, which looked somewhat
like an iron lung. The device
measures the flow of blood
like an Iron lung. The device
measures the flow of blood to
and from the lower parts of
their bodies.
. Dr. Garriott was seen operat-
ing the controls for the tele-
ope-:
Later, Dr. Garriott plans to
take pictures of Arabella, the
female spider that is spinning
webs in another test of the ef-
fect of zero-gravity on .bodily
functions./^
^‘T just checked our friend
Arabella, and she did complete-
ly spun a new web last night”
Dr. Garriott told Mission Con-
trol. “She is a fast learner in:
deed. This time the web is es-
sentially, at first glance, like
one you would find on the
ground.” ‘ *
A Disorganized Web
ArabpUa’s.;-first web was a
rather disorganized one, with
a lot of- threads but no real
Cfinter.jgS; s    ^
Temperatures in the Skylab
were dropping slowly äs the re-
sult of the new 22-by-24-foot
awning that was deployed yes-
terday over the damaged roof.
^Charles Hpli Lewis,f1 a flight
director, said that temperatures
near the Skylab’s water tanks
dropped from 120 degrees Fah-
renheit^ to about OQ degrees.
Cabin temperatures dropped a
degree or two, to slightly be-
low 80 degrees.
The old parasol, which thei
Skylab 1 astronauts erected,
did hot privude cinokete civer-
age and was believed to be
deteriorating from prolonged
exposure tOA-the sun.’
“ Skylab 2i$ only new problem
was a . malfunction of its on-
board teleprinter. The machine,
much like a teletype in news-
paper offices, receives and
prints out instructions and
flight plan revisions radioed to
the crew every- night.
A balky rubber fitting was
Routiife Tops
apparently responsible for the
machine skipping words and
overprinting lines. The astro-
nauts installed a spare printing
mechanism in the machine, and
it began working properly.