User:Ke4roh/Skylab 4 human factors/RfC

Tea with ke4roh

Please join me with a cup of tea, and indulge as I address the variety of concerns raised about my recent expansion and renaming of the article in question. It's a bit long, but over the last 42 years, this tale has been spun more ways than I can count or trace, so I'll go through a key few, discussing source reliability, original research, and the title of the article.

Although this topic is primarily of interest to those in the sciences, this is not a scientific issue per se. It is matter of historical record. WP:AGE MATTERS offers, "With regard to historical events, older reports (closer to the event, but not too close such that they are prone to the errors of breaking news) tend to have the most detail, and are less likely to have errors introduced by repeated copying and summarizing." Basic historical methods invite us to assume that the initial record is generally correct, and if that record is found to be in error, it is incumbent upon the more recent author to provide an accompanying explanation of how the earlier record was wrong.

Here, I'll talk about "my" draft. This is merely a shorthand for what I'm talking about, neither a claim of ownership (though I did write most of it), nor particularly being married to it. I, as I would expect do my fellow editors, seek the best content for Wikipedia regardless of who writes it.

Selected sources to consider

This section goes over sources, mostly individually, but some in batches, all in chronological order.

Reports during the mission

Daily newspaper reports give a detailed account of what happened each day. They are generally considered primary sources per WP:USEPRIMARY. While they might cover up something that happened because they're based mostly on NASA press conferences and an ardent cynic might expect NASA to cover up unpleasant information, secondary sources providing new information would also need to explain the cover-up. They are useful for revealing the day-by-day timeline which is important in this context.

Carr's diary, as quoted in his biography, is also a primary source, but the biography also contains Shayler's interpretations which may be secondary.

Splashdown coverage

Splashdown coverage gave a roll-up review of what happened on Skylab 4. TV news, National Geographic, TIME Magazine, Aviation Week and Space Technology, and newspaper reports are in agreement that this was a record-setting mission of 84 days, the longest yet, with a record expected to be held for some time. The mission got off to a rough start with the crew attempting, unsuccessfully, to cover up a space motion sickness vomiting problem, included considerable overwork of the crew, errors by the crew early on, mucking up some of the science, but those problems were largely overcome later in the mission, gyroscope problems, and successful solar, earth, and cometary observations. After splashdown, all three of the crew were expected to fly again. Further detail can be found in my draft. It is against this backdrop of prompt but not "breaking news" reporting that we can assess other sources for reliability.

Mission transcripts

Transcripts come with caveats. WP writers should generally shy away from these primary sources, but they can be useful for evaluation of source reliability and ascertaining the correct exact quote as recommended in WP:PRIMARY. As a matter of understanding how errors may be introduced in transcripts, the crew raised these concerns: words are attributed to the wrong speaker sometimes, words are missing sometimes, and tone of voice, which is often important to the message, is lost entirely.

Ivins 1974

According to Ivins '74[1], Gibson and Carr both said overprogramming caused friction with Mission Control. Carr said they "rebelled" on "day 48 or 50," "the day of the great camera orgy." This day was actually day 56, January 10. If Ivins (or some other writer) had decided to investigate this particular day off further, conversations with mission control and others would have been in order. What we have is Mission Control saying they "earned" a day off, and a report that it was the first day off in nearly eight weeks. In this case, Ivins is a reliable source for what Carr said, but Ivins is not a reliable source to declare that rebellion happened - because she didn't investigate the date or the details of the 'rebellion,' to get the opinions of people in other positions of what happened.

Cooper. A House in Space et al. 1976

Cooper has several problems. (Commentary here generally applies to his very similar New Yorker article which was published shortly before the book came out. I own a paperback edition, though I have reviewed and scanned a few pages from the hardback.) This oft-cited source in the "strike" narrative takes the single quote from Ivins about rebellion and escalates it to a declared, matter-of-fact "strike," but it does so amid a wide array of journalistic errors. He fails to cite sources, writes as if he can read minds, muddies the timeline, further muddies with vague wording about timing, and seemingly finds a new event of spectacular human interest that news sources failed to report when it happened.

Cooper cites no sources except the "B channel" and open channel communications with Skylab. The book lacks a bibliography, footnotes, or endnotes. This makes it hard to verify his writing, and doubly hard when he writes as omnicient.

He writes the book in third-person omniscient voice. Consider, "…Looking out the round wardroom window, an astronaut felt like a scientist who had suddenly substituted a lower-powered, wide-angled lens on his microscope." Alas, he doesn't tell us which astronaut might have said that, or why he believes this. It certainly could be accurate, but perhaps it's Cooper's imagination, and we can't tell from this resource alone. Cooper can't tell what other people are thinking, and he's not an astronaut. Of the third crew in particular, Cooper "symptomatiz[ed] general irritability and peevishness." Flight surgeon William K. Douglas found fault with Cooper's reporting for its emotional tone and rush to find (or invent) failure "while overlooking greatness." Cooper did not speak to the Skylab 4 astronauts before writing his book, but got his information from transcripts. Cooper's penchant for mind-reading, and in this case getting it wrong, ruined the accuracy of the Skylab 4 section of the book.

Cooper muddies the timeline to dramatic effect. He presents the "strike" as coming about the same time as what he calls a "declaration of independence," Carr's inquiry into exactly where they stand. Cooper begins his paragraph, "Carr, Gibson, and Pogue stopped working and did exactly what they felt like doing. Gibson spent the day on the solar console, while Carr and Pogue sat in the wardroom looking out the window. They took a lot of pictures, not of scientific targets but of things they wanted to take." This matches very closely with Ivins: "Finally, on day 48 or 50, we rebelled, we just stopped everything. We did just what we wanted to do all day long. It was the day of the great camera orgy.” (While Gibson worked the solar telescope, which happens to turn him on a lot, the other two spent most of that day at the windows with their cameras.)" That "Great camera orgy" matches exactly with the transcript for January 10.. Carr and Shayler also address the "mutiny" in the January 10 part of Carr's biography. Cooper's "strike" seems to have been January 10. The next sentence in Cooper, in the same paragraph that begins with the "strike" description, is "Carr made a sort of declaration of independence to the ground," and he proceeds to quote Carr's inquiry of December 28. Merging things that happened 12 days apart, and putting the second before the first is erroneous. The characterization of this inquiry as a "declaration of independence" is irresponsible. Both are WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, as is the muddled timeline.

The date of this alleged "strike" is unclear. "End of the sixth week" could be mission day 42 (counting seven-day weeks) or mission day 60 (counting 10-day weeks used by the crew), or perhaps some other day. December 26 (mission day 41) and January 10 (day 56) were the closest days off. The most similarly-described day to this day off is January 10.

Lacking sufficient evidence to check this event against other sources, Cooper is not reliable to proclaim there was a "strike at the end of the sixth week." This is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim, bordering on WP:FRINGE. Even though the author has written other respected books and articles in space history, this source is not sufficiently robust to make an exceptional claim. Cooper puts forth an idea contradicting prior primary and secondary sources, tacitly suggesting that prior writers omitted and/or covered up a significant event at a vague time. Readers are left guessing not only when it happened, but also exactly what transpired and how Cooper might have learned of these things.

To responsibly contradict the record, Cooper should have provided evidence that an omission/cover-up is plausible, give some explanation as to how prior sources are incorrect, provide a more precise date, and provide more details about the event - such as who characterized it as a "strike" and where he got the idea. Cooper should also have gone to some pains to explain why a Marine Corps officer (Carr) and an Air Force pilot (Pogue) would have done something so drastic.

Cooper initiated the "strike" and "revolt" narrative. While the crew certainly did have days off, they certainly did not declare that they weren't doing what they'd been told to do. They worked the plan they were given, and when they were given too much work on their days off (especially Dec 17 and Jan 2), they pushed back (December 30 and after the Jan 2 day off) so that the next day off would be useful for recharging, resulting in a legit day off on Jan 10.

Flight surgeon Douglas observed that almost all articles covering the psychology of spaceflight lament the paucity of factual information available, and that they instead refer to "anecdotal evidence of emotional problems" with references to popular press, but not to astronaut statements in scientific literature. He drew strong parallels between Cooper's coverage of Skylab 4 and the novel Mutiny on The Bounty by Nordhoff and Hall, and notes that in both cases, popular literature has a tendency to overlook factual accounts in favor of the more dramatic, introducing errors into the popular understanding of the actual events.

Cooper never explained why his account diverged from other accounts, not even when challenged and specifically given the opportunity.

Cooper is reliable only in the context of asserting that "Cooper says there was a strike..."

Weick 1977

Weick is unreliable for space history. He calls the mission "Apollo 3" and cites Cooper '76, repeating the "strike" story without any further explanation.

Bluth 1979

Bluth is reliable to refute a "strike," but not reliable to assert that "something happened" (different from the contemporaneous record). Irrespective of the editorial oversight provided by L5 News, If this had happened in the time of bloggers, Bluth would be considered one of those experts in the field per the exception: "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications."(WP:RS) Not only is Bluth reliable in her own right, but in the context given in the article, saying "Bluth refutes...", it is reliable. It is also reliable for establishing some of her credentials which can be easily enough verified on Google Scholar.

Balbaky. "A Strike in Space," Harvard Business School, 1980-81

Balbaky (I have the 1981 edition of the paper) is not reliable to assert there was a strike or that the radio was off, nor to establish a timeline for the strike - Balbaky relies on Cooper and fails reliability for the same reasons. She was not attempting to make a historical record. She muddied the timeline further when she quoted part of Carr's request for their status from December 28, followed by his words from the January 2 press conference where press asked some challenging questions about their humanity, and used those as the lead-in to a strike with the radio off for the whole day. This source's addition that the crew turned off the radio and refused communication is another WP:EXCEPTIONAL tacit assertion that the contemporary record was wrong, and it comes without the necessary explanation of how or why the contemporary record omitted such a dramatic turn of events. There were no periods in the transcript of CAPCOM calling and getting no answer on January 10, December 28, or… I invite you to look at the other days, but the press didn't remark about the crew being unreachable at the time. Balbaky provides a timeline of events at the end, which gives the "Declaration of Independence" coming on December 27, contradicting without explanation, the transcript date for that inquiry of December 28. Balbacky then implies that the strike happened the next day, but neither states that, nor gives any further explanation for those dates in the timeline. With the addition of these further embellishments, and considering the subsequent propagation of this idea in various fields, it squarely qualifies as WP:FRINGE.

Stanley 1984

The first mention I have found of "mutiny" to describe Cooper's event is April 1, 1984, in the Austin-American Statesman article "Spaceflight: Just Another Day at the Office" by Dick Stanley. It doesn't appear to be an April Fool's joke. This version of the story puts the event during the established Christmas Day EVA. Again, without some explanation of the discrepancy, the later source is not reliable to contradict the earlier sources.

Connors et al 1975

Connors is generally reliable because it refers to several sources to understand significant matters and does not needlessly repeat errors. It recounts the "strike" of Cooper '76, "According to Cooper…", and explains that Cooper's characterization is not universal, followed by a summary of Bluth '79's refutation. Although it cites Weick '77, it does not repeat the "Apollo 3" error, but makes that citation in the context of supporting the claim that the crew was over-programmed, which is not disputed. It does not delve so deeply into an analysis of Cooper's specific errors as I have above.

Oberg & Oberg 1986

The Obergs don't say much, touching on the subject on pages 11 and 23. On the latter page, they say, "The famous 'Skylab-4 Strike' in 1973 has been overblown, but the actual event was in fact symptomatic of Earth-space tensions and festering ill will." Without any further information, this is not reliable to assert that something happened (which would contravene the contemporaneous reports), but it is reliable to assert that the "strike" has been overblown. On page 11, the book makes the peculiar claim, "The men, frazzled by a stream of exhausting orders from Mission Control, and decided to take a day off to get their heads together and give Earth a chance to calm down." This differs from contemporary accounts without explanation, so is not reliable. It doesn't explain why they might have thought wha There are no footnotes in this book, but a bibliography references Cooper '76 and Bluth '79 among many, many others.

Schoonhoven 1986

Even peer-reviewed journals include some occasional nonsense. Schoonhoven somehow managed to sneak this bonkers sentence into the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science: "On Friday, December 27, 1973[sic—Dec 27 was Thursday], the Apollo 3 [sic] astronauts conducted the first day-long, sit-down strike in space, closing down communication with mission control [sic] for 24 hours and refusing to work until management in mission control [sic] had set priorities for its work demands." This sort of sloppy writing (and/or sloppy referencing) permeates sources that tend to pick up this story. By this point in the bad game of telephone, it is clear that the story has jumped the shark. The "Apollo 3" error appears to have been originated by Weick '77. That sentence is referenced to Weick and Cooper '76. The source is suitable only as a reference for saying "Schoonhoven says…", and perhaps for things specifically about behavioral science, but absolutely not as a space history reference.

Douglas 1991

Douglas draws a comparison between Nordoff and Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty and Cooper's A House In Space. He explains that Cooper's is a dramatized account written to sell books and magazines. It doesn't make any wild claims or say anything deviating from contemporary reports, so appears reliable.

Thomas. Organizational Behaviour Casebook, 1996

The Organizational Behaviour Casebook (1996) is not reliable for asserting a strike. It cites Schoonhoven and Cooper,, plus other references that don't mention or make only passing mention of some strike. This one places the "strike" or "mutiny" after the EVA following the December 25 EVA, and ending on December 30. Neither is the intention of the work historical accuracy, nor does it address why the contemporaneous reports were incorrect.

Carr Oral History 2000 & other astronaut accounts of the radio being off

Astronaut accounts of the radio being off are not sufficient. In 2000, Carr "admitted" that the radio was off for a pass/orbit, but that could be that they actually missed making contact over a ground station and astronauts recall it, but it wasn't notable (since no media covered it until Balbaky's unsubstantiated assertion), or it could be a false memory brought on by rationalizing post-1980 reports. There is no record of the press observing the crew being difficult to contact at any time during the mission, and they do not provide enough information to support contradicting the contemporary reports. The same rationale applies to Carr's account in his biography and Gibson's account in Homesteading. Pogue didn't address it that I've found.

Freeman 2000

Freeman Paraphrases Cooper fairly closely paraphrases Cooper (and references Cooper in the bibliography). Freeman offers no further information about why prior record is incorrect. It is not reliable for asserting a strike for the same reasons as Cooper.

Shayler 2001

David Shayler's 2001 book on Skylab gives a satisfactory example of a book on Skylab. The timeline is intact, facts are presented, and the interpretation of emotions is left to the reader. References could have been more explicit, but stated facts are verifiable, and the book is in agreement with prior sources. It goes into some detail about the habitability experiment, particularly quoting some more amiable comments. An interview for this book led to a friendship between Shayler and Carr which led to Carr's biography. In the introduction to that biography Carr wrote, "Dave is a thorough researcher…" Shayler is generally reliable.

Collins 2003

Collins is not reliable that high-ranking NASA officials declared a "rebellion". It is the only source backing Space Safety Magazine (2013) Space Safety gives this eyebrow-raising sentence: "This insistence [on a day off] was later labelled as rebellion by high-ranking individuals within NASA." Collins says, "This insistence [on a full day off] was later labeled as a rebellion by high-ranking individuals within NASA (Bluth 1981)." And there are two Bluth 1981 resources in the bibliography, a book "Update on Space" which makes no mention of Skylab, and an article in Science 81 "Soviet Space Stress," which doesn't much discuss Skylab but includes a sidebar by Carr which says "We insisted on a full day free, and that insistence was later labeled a rebellion." But Carr does not say that "high-ranking individuals within NASA" did the labeling. It would have helped if Carr had mentioned Cooper at that point, but it seems he was being polite. It would also have helped if Collins had faithfully recorded the content of his source.

Hitt. Homesteading Space, 2008

Homesteading Space is generally reliable, with one caveat. Again, astronauts' recollections of the radio being off, some quoted here, are not, without some other form of confirmation, either in the transcript or an explanation of how it was missed, enough to assert that the radio was off because nobody else reported that happening at the vague time they suggest it did happen.

Shayler. Around the World in 84 Days. 2008

Shayler's authorized biography of Carr is part primary source and part secondary. The diary entries and lengthy interview passages are arguably primary. Passages by Shayler are, of course secondary. This source is generally reliable, though Carr talks about the radio being off, saying "Ed was doing a TV thing and he mistakenly misconfigured the communications systems. We went over one of our ground stations with our radios off. The press picked up on that immediately and called that mutiny, saying that we were a real crabby group." This is not reliable because it contradicts earlier record. Either the radio was off over a ground station on January 10 or it wasn't, but nobody (AP, UPI, Reuters) reported about it on January 11, so it wasn't notable at the time. This passage is not reliable to say that the press picked up on the radio being off immediately or that there was prompt reporting of a mutiny. One might infer from this that the astronauts have since been dogged by the tale. A number of authors have made that assertion.

Vakoch 2009

Vakoch quotes Cooper and cites NASA flight surgeon William K. Douglas. Vakoch is reliable to assert that Cooper's description of the crew is "hostile, irritable, and downright grumpy", and reliable to assert that Douglas and others deny there was a strike.

Evans 2011

Evans retells Carr's account of the radio being off (again, unreliable without further substantiation), and Carr, in it, supposes the press went bonkers with the radio having been off. One might wonder then how Carr would know what was in the press reports of the day. Did his wife save all the papers? If the Houston Chronicle had someone on staff covering it all the time, I haven't seen their articles yet, but I have checked AP, Reuters, and UPI stories for the mission and found no mention of such a thing. The crew received highly edited excerpts of the news, and often times found out about things like the Watergate hearings from family calls instead of from the NASA news briefs. There is reason to believe that NASA would not have been forthcoming with any negative coverage of the mission. The crew also was necessarily aware of questions from the press during the January 2 press conference with the astronauts, and those were upsetting to the crew in that some questions implied the crew were error-prone slackers. (See Carr's bio. His wife went to bat for them with Slayton, resulting in January 5 praise from Slayton and a real day off January 10.) In short, Cooper would have known little about actual negative press coverage during the flight. It seems "the press" of whom Carr speaks is actually Cooper '76 and subsequent references to that story. The summary conclusion Evans draws at the end comports with prior sources and is reliable: "[The strike] was an unfair accusation which lead to a stigma that would hang over Carr's crew for decades."

Chopra. "On Strike in Outer Space", OPEN Magazine. 2013

Chopra 2013 is not reliable. This one dramatizes the barf incident: "…[T]here was nowhere to hide from Mission Control." After several more dramatic sentences, this zinger comes up, "The astronauts soon realised that they were, for all practical purposes, prisoners under surveillance; they had no privacy, and there was nowhere they could ‘hide’ from the peeping eyes and ears of NASA’s Mission Control." Except they knew exactly where the switch for the recorder was, understood they forgot to switch it off, and acknowledged their error of cover-up. Chopra dramatizes more of the mission, misattributing Gibson's "no way to do business" as a reference to monitoring when it was about overscheduling. He continues in this dramatic mind-reading vein and repeats Cooper's error of chronology by putting the day off before the conversation with Mission Control about how far behind they are. Chopra goes a step farther to proclaim, "It has since been suggested that the so-called ‘revolt’ or ‘strike’ wasn’t really one at all. But these revisionist accounts do not discount the contentious and irritable relationship between Houston and Skylab 4, nor do they refute the notion that even highly trained military types and scientists fully convinced of the value of their work are likely to push back when placed in an artificially controlled, too-tightly-regulated environment." This bit of historical negationism is especially odd because the astronauts were overprogrammed, did push back, Cooper symptomatized, and they never took a day off without Mission Control's prior agreement. So it's not entirely peculiar that this author calls those who would disavow a strike "revisionist," particularly when a "strike" wasn't mentioned at all in the first two years after the mission. Chopra cites no sources and gives no explanation for differences from the contemporary record.

Evans 2013

Evans comports with the contemporary record and includes mention of Balbaky's piece which popularized the strike along with Coopers, then begins the conclusion with, "…Crippen knew that the events of 28 December by no means reflected any kind of rebellion on Carr’s part," correctly asserting that there was no strike or rebellion at all. (Of course this article is by the same author as the book from 2 years prior.)

Pogue's NYT obituary 2014

Pogue's NYT obituary is not reliable to assert a strike because within the body of the obituary, it explains that the term "strike" was used jokingly by the crew after the mission. Also, Cooper was interviewed for the article and may have lent undue influence to the notion. There is no detail whatsoever about the "strike" - no dates, no information about what transpired, and the article does not explain why the contemporary record may have missed this event.

Kay 2014

Kay (2014) is not reliable to support the tale, either. cites Freeman 2000, Chopra 2013, and the NYT obit. It asserts a strike December 28, radio off, and they didn't return because of it. Alas, no explanation of why this story is more plausible than the record in the documents of the day.

Hiltzik and Loomis 2015

The LA Times business article by Hiltzik is not reliable to explain what happened. There are several problems here. There was no secret eavesdropping by Mission Control - Pogue had the voice recorder switch and did not switch off the recorder when they were finished. Hiltzik cites Loomis (from earlier that same day). Loomis cites no sources and makes these exceptional claims: Astronauts were infuriated by being overheard by mission control. "Carr and his crew demanded a day off. NASA refused. So Carr simply shut off the radio and took the day off they wanted.… NASA went ballistic." "The next day, December 29, NASA agreed to quit micromanaging the astronauts…" Neither source explains how the radio could have been off for a whole day during a televised conversation with an astronomer, and that somehow the media managed to miss this fact in their reports about December 28, suggesting that the radio was also off during Carr's inquiry about how far behind they were, and during so much other back-and-forth on a regular workday. It also does not address why this bizarre behavior was not reported two days later when the crew and ground had conversations about how they could work better together.. It also does not address the fact that Chief Astronaut Slayton would have heaped praise on the astronauts a week and a half larer, saying said, “As far as we're concerned down here, you're doing an outstanding job all the way. Just keep up the good work stay loose and enjoy it.” He added, “I think if you keep going the way you've been going, why, it'll be one of the best missions we've ever seen.”. Loomis's blog post is not reliable, and LATimes should not have relied on it.

Eschner and Wired 2017

Eschner, in Smithsonian Magazine and Wired Magazine (2017) are not reliable to support a "strike" - Smithsonian cites only a Motherboard blog as support for the strike (Wired has no citations), all three repeat Cooper's mixed-up timeline, Balbaky's addition of the radio being off, and adds the assumption that they didn't return to space because of it. There is no justification for deviating from contemporary reports. This appears to be exactly the sort of retelling of inaccurate stories warned about in WP:AGE_MATTERS.

Giamio. "Did 3 NASA Astronauts Really Hold a Space Strike?" Atlas Obscura, 2017

Gaiamio in Atlas Obscura is a mixed bag. It states, contrary to prior record, "For a full orbit during [a few days before New Year’s Eve]—a little over 93 minutes—none of the astronauts manned any of the radios that connected them to Mission Control." It does not offer any substantiation for this deviation, nor any particular date for the occasion, nor any justification for the prior record having omitted this event. It cites Homesteading to support the notion that the radio was off for an orbit, but Homesteading only quotes astronauts to support that notion, the allegation apparently stemming from Balbacky's embellishment of Cooper's invention of a "strike." This source also cites Cooper for astronaut emotions regarding the vomit incident, and astronauts' statements about this have been recorded, but Cooper's mind-reading does not comport with their statements. Also, the timeline of this article is messed up because it supposes that this radio silence occurred during the a goof-off day (January 10 was the first according to prior record), before Carr's December 28 inquiry. Atlas Obscura provides a tertiary source at best, with little or no critical editorial oversight.

Strike stories in general

Sources that reference Cooper or Balbaky directly, indirectly, or even tacitly to support the idea of a "strike" (a strike by any other name would smell as sweet) without further supporting evidence of why they believe the prior record to be incorrect are unreliable to assert that the events they claim happened for the same reasons as Cooper. Nobody gives verifiable specifics in their fantastic tales or a rationale for why the more mundane story is wrong. Mere repetition doesn't increase accuracy or reliability.

On Original Research

There are six primary angles I've considered to test for original research: Finding out what happened on the flight, assessing sources' reliability, reporting on sources' embellishment, inclusion of information, structure, and following references.

First, it is not "original research" to find out what happened on a space mission by citing the newspapers from that time. It's also not a problem to look to them for supporting details to accompany information from secondary sources such as splashdown coverage and books written after the fact.

Second, it is "original research" to do as I have above in performing a critical assessment of various sources' reliability, but we are expected to be smart about the sources we use. It is worthwhile to have this discussion on the talk page to assess the reliability of the sources. In fact WP:OR states "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources…". This evaluation process is important to arriving at a more accurate understanding of what happened.

Challenging the narrative of the strike is not my invention: Bluth, Homesteading, Evans, Oberg, Vakoch, and Douglas directly refute the "strike." Additionally Homesteading contains quotations from several people who should know, including astronauts and flight controllers, each addressing the strike directly. Even if it were my idea to challenge the "strike", secondary sources closer to the event would be exactly the right place to look to find out what happened. The fact that it's hard to tie the "strike" story back to objective reality as reported at the time is evidence that the story is false.

A reddit post does a through takedown of the idea of a strike but it is not referenced in the article because it's not "reliable." It does reference a treasure trove of sources, many primary, some secondary, and asserts that the most referenced work in Balbaky "by far" is Cooper. This is also my assessment, with 24 references to "A House in Space" and exactly one other source from after the mission started, Science News, supporting a quotation of Carr. Citations in Balbaky are almost all Cooper, with a few from before the mission, and exactly one coming after the mission and not concerning what happened on it.

Likewise, a blog post by Emily Carney refutes the strike but was not cited for the article because I wasn't prepared to argue the author's credibility, though she is a respected space writer.

Inclusion of information from the newspapers of the day is reasonable because the article purports to be about something that happened during a particular space mission which was reported in secondary sources. It is reasonable to include stories about time off, friction with crew, and other problems that have been mentioned by reliable sources in conjunction with this subject, such as the space motion sickness incident and the camera filter incident which would put the crew in a more difficult position. Gyroscope problems and the variety of experiments onboard Skylab get only passing mention in discussions of this topic so are reasonable to omit.

Wikipedia coverage of the "mutiny" is warranted only because it has propagated so broadly from Cooper's original story, and it has been published in so many otherwise-reliable sources. Given that it is worth covering, it should be covered in a who-says-what style rather than as if the assertions were true.

Much in the way Wikipedia allows TV shows to be self-referential because the publication chain provides some oversight to their content, it stands to reason that, when a writer cites another writer, the relationship of sources is similarly vetted and deemed worthy of publication by an editor, therefore inclusion and following of those references does not constitute original research.

The transcript from January 10 is acceptable to establish the date of the "great camera orgy" - The use of the transcript on January 10 to establish the date of the "great camera orgy" is a reasonable use of a primary source. The original quotation was vague as to the date but specific as to what it was called, inviting the reader to seek the unusual phrase in another source that could provide the exact date. Carr and Shayler also address the "mutiny" fable in the January 10 part of Carr's biography. If NASA had any motivation to alter this record, it would be to suppress these words, but they were said on the open channel. This also does not constitute synthesis because the question of the date follows naturally from the vagueness of the date given in the interview with Ivins. (It is a shame Ivins didn't do this, but we didn't have searchable transcripts in 1974.) See also Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Quotations Surely this "not synthesis" claim is the most tenuous of the whole lot. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this one, but I do believe the information adds a useful element of clarity, and I believe the assembly of the information is within our mandates.

Considering the title

The present title is not neutral, and any title that suggests that there was a rebellion/strike/mutiny is similarly not neutral, nor is it based on any reliable source. NPOV calls for Wikipedia specifically not taking a position for or against the event happening because there are conflicting sources. We need to put the "mutiny" in its correct historical context.

There is no "common name." A Newspapers.com search for "Skylab mutiny" (in quotes) turns up nothing, suggesting that it might not be a common name. The first mention in that corpus (and among several others I checked) of the "Skylab" and "mutiny" in the same article comes from more than a decade after splashdown - April 1, 1984 in the Austin-American Statesman [2][3] (The irony of this article is that it accuses them of conducting a mutiny during an EVA - on Christmas day, again without addressing how the contemporary record was in error.) According to Google Trends [4], "Strike in Space" is 6 times as popular as "Skylab mutiny", and "Space Mutiny" (also a B movie) has more traction, likely because of the movie. "Strike in Space" is also the title of Balbaky's popular exercise. Would this article exist without the "strike"? It's hard to say. There were workload problems, and there is something worth studying with respect to the workload and psychology for an 84-day mission, distinct from the shorter prior missions. I would expect this article to get created much later had Cooper not dramatized his account, because it would be buried in the particulars of its respective disciplines rather than dramatized into the popular press. But this is not reason to call the article "Skylab mutiny" unless we also find that we can declare that the event didn't happen at all. I might be persuaded to support the title Skylab mutiny if and only if the subject is presented as a false WP:Fringe Theory. Face on Mars may provide a good example after which we could pattern such an article—note that it is not titled after the fanciful name but rather the region.

Skylab 4 human factors is a suitable title. It is not glamorous, but it gets to the point that the article concerns itself with the human factors of the mission. (Ergonomics had only tangential impact on the psychology and work output, though they did study ergonomics on the mission.) It sets up the article to concern itself with the workload, group dynamics, psychology, the space motion sickness and the mistakes the crew made from being rushed as they were. It gives an opening to tell the story as it unfolded. A similar article is not warranted for the prior missions because they were shorter duration and did not trigger so much back-and-forth about scheduling, but if someone someday goes and digs up how many things got done on each day of all the missions, we could chart it.

Conclusion

In summary, there was no strike on Skylab 4 by any name. The crew faithfully followed instructions for the entire mission to the best of their ability. Mission Control overworked the astronauts and expected them to continue at the frenetic pace previous crews had been able to maintain thanks to their shorter duration missions. The astronauts pushed back on December 17, December 28, and after the January 2 "day off" that wasn't. This pushback was entirely reasonable, and conducted professionally. Cooper dramatized, contorted the timeline, and relied on secondary sources to tell a story of a "rebellion" or "strike" that caught many people's attention and was re-told with additional fabricated details in a popular Harvard Business School exercise. None of these retellings of the dramatic "strike" story provides any verifiable detail, or any rationale for challenging the contemporaneous record. The story has survived because it's exciting, not on its merits.

Wikipedia should cover both the actual story and the popular misinformation (which is notable because of its popularity). Wikipedia should have enough information to assert that the "strike" didn't happen, but that might also constitute original research, particularly because several sources that tend to be reliable in other contexts have taken up this tale. At the very least, we should present the information to allow the reader to decide, and weight the information according to our findings of reliability for various sources. We have to take into account the fact that, if a source wishes to reliably assert that prior sources were incorrect, there must be some explanation as to the difference—nobody has explained the difference. It follows that the focus (as stipulated by the title) of the article must change to what actually happened on Skylab, with a section addressing the notable but erroneous story that has developed through retellings.

References

References