Skylab IV: Not happy campers

​Skylab IV splashed down on this day in 1974, ending the last mission to America's first space station.

They were glad to get home.

The crew of Skylab IV -- William Pogue, Gerald Carr and Edward Gibson -- became famous for the sheer amount of complaining they did.

Arguments with NASA over the amount of work they were assigned became so bad that the crew staged a one-day strike.

Among the things they complained about during the 84-day mission:

5. Fashion
In Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, author Nicholas de Monchaux quotes a Skylab IV crew member on what they were forced to wear.

"I just get tired of this damn brown!" Skylab IV scientist Edward Gibson lamented...about his own clothing, supplied only in a yellowish-brown fireproof polyester. Skylab IV mission pilot William Pogue judged that using them was "sort of like drying off with padded steel wool."

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Shannon O'Roark Griffin snapped.

​You'd think one NASA-related incident of a woman taking a road trip with evil intent to deal with a romantic rival would be enough.

But you'd be wrong.

Police say Shannon O'Roark Griffin, 52, has been charged with capital murder for killing the woman her husband admitted having an affair with Friday, and then briefly going on the run.

O'Roark Griffin worked as a training specialist at NASA but had retired to Granbury. Her husband, Roscoe Griffin, is a retired Air Force colonel who was a computer instructor at NASA years ago.

Reports say the Griffins had been having marital trouble and, in a counseling session, Roscoe Griffin admitted he was having an affair with psychiatrist Irina Puscariu, who lived in the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone.

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Light this candle.

​Mayor Annise Parker joined today with the mayor of Huntsville, Alabama -- do we really need to tell you his name is Tommy Battle? No, really, it is -- to inform NASA and all politicians who vote on it that they better get going on NASA's new project.

The two "have formally asked the Obama Administration to help facilitate quick finalization of all aspects" of the project, which includes new rockets and crew vehicles, called the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV).

If "Help facilitate quick finalization of all aspects" isn't a catchy fighting slogan, we don't know what is.

"President Obama's support for SLS and the MPCV is critical to the stabilization of the aerospace industry and the economic recovery for Houston and other NASA communities," Parker said. "I ask that the White House urge NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to move as expeditiously as possible on all relevant contracts. Speed is imperative to eliminate workforce uncertainty and ensure our nation's global leadership in space and in technological advancement. We must prevent the transfer of Johnson Space Center's cutting-edge brain trust to points around the world."

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NASA has posted new videos of International Space Station astronauts doing experiments proposed by schoolkids, and it includes this easy-to-grasp one.

Everyone knows how a pendulum acts on Earth. How about in zero gravity? Astronaut Cady Coleman -- who shows again why she made our list of Seven Wildest Astronaut Hair Photos -- demonstrates, via the use of a pencil and some dental floss.

A pendulum will act differently, she says, "and it's going to be because of good old Mr. Newton and his first law of motion, that an object when set in motion is going to stay in motion until it meets another force."

Mike Fincke: What can you expect from a Steeler fan?

​Houston, still smarting over missing out on a retired space shuttle, now gets to hear NASA astronauts going on and on about how the decision was a great one.

Members of the Endeavour crew were in Los Angeles recently to take part in the California Science Center's formal acceptance of their aircraft, which should have gone to Houston, dammit.

Pilot Greg "Box" Johnson and mission specialists Mike Fincke and Drew Feustel spoke with the Los Angeles Times about their ship and its new home.

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​It was ugly, brutal and painful to watch. As a movie fan of some 40 years, I could be describing any number of lopsided fight scenes. But as a UT fan, I'm of course referring to the horrific pounding Oklahoma put on my Longhorns last Saturday.

The Sooners dominated every aspect of the game, trouncing a Texas team that maybe, possibly can see a silver lining in their relative youth (QB Case McCoy is a sophomore, QB David Ash and RB Malcolm Brown are freshmen). But there's no denying OU administered a good, old-fashioned hippie ass-whomping, as Chief Wiggum might have said.

Seeking solace in the two things that have given me solace in my darkest hours -- Jack Daniels and movie trivia -- I tried to frame my despair in such a way as to make the most sense to me. So here are several grotesque cinematic ass-kickings.

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This could be you

​Tired of your dead-end job? Get into a profession that's guaranteed to be well-funded for the foreseeable future and beyond: manned space travel!!

NASA is once again opening up the application process for astronaut jobs, even though, you know, there are no more shuttle missions and NASA is a prime target for federal cutbacks.

Still, says Janet Kavandi, director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center, it's a great time to be an astronaut.

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The telephone is ringing...

​NASA geeks rejoice: The agency has made some of their audio greatest hits available for use as ringtones.

You probably could have finagled a way to do some of these before, but now NASA has made it easy, putting a menu of options ranging from "Houston, we've had a problem" (The "Play it again, Rick" of NASA in terms of being misquoted), JFK's going to the moon "and other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" (although we prefer "I nail all these women not because they are easy but because I am hard") and, of course, "Houston, Tranquility Base here.The Eagle has landed."

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​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them.

So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even.

This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involving wit, clarity and whatever else we feel like at the moment.

We noted how NASA's "Tatooine" announcement wasn't the first time they had invoked Star Wars hype to get some attention, and listed five other examples.

One reader urged us to lighten up.

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NASA: If only there was a movie about a two-sun planet....

​NASA officials hyped a press conference yesterday about a new discovery via the way they know best: Trot out the Star Wars references.

People connected with the movie and SFX gurus Industrial Light & Magic were on the panel to discuss how the Kepler space telescope had discovered a planet with two suns. Because, you know, the non-scientist's expertise was needed to explain to the media how there was once a science-fiction film with two suns.

It wasn't the first time NASA has played the Star Wars card, and it likely won't be the last. And we just don't mean the photo ops or the tie-ins between the movie franchise and space-museum displays.

Here are five times NASA's played the Star Wars card in press releases:

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