Editing Rusty Schweickart (section)

=== Skylab and beyond ===
Although [[Deke Slayton]] (who was responsible for all flight assignments as Director of Flight Crew Operations) opined that Schweickart "would have been a logical lunar module pilot" on subsequent lunar missions—indeed, the standard rotation of the era would have placed him on the backup crew for [[Apollo 12]] and the prime crew of [[Apollo 15]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~oard/apollo/poss_moonwalkers.html|title=The Moonwalkers Who Could have Been|last1=Oard|first1=Doug|access-date=May 22, 2016|archive-date=April 12, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412024509/http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~oard/apollo/poss_moonwalkers.html|url-status=live}}</ref> —"that bout of space sickness had everybody worried ... it didn't seem like a good idea to put him back in ... at this point."<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_S-PoBi8Eu8C&q=rusty+apollo+applications|title=Deke! U.S. Manned Space From Mercury To the Shuttle|last1=Slayton|first1=Donald|last2=Cassutt|first2=Michael|year=1995|publisher=Tom Doherty Associates|isbn=978-1466802148|access-date=October 20, 2020|archive-date=October 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017021853/https://books.google.com/books?id=_S-PoBi8Eu8C&q=rusty+apollo+applications#v=snippet&q=rusty%20apollo%20applications&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Following his mission, Schweickart "basically called the shot that I really didn't want to be assigned to a flight until we knew more about motion sickness" and became "[a] motion sickness guinea pig" for six months; while "[he] didn't learn that much" during the testing, it is now accepted that as many as half of space travelers suffer from space adaptation syndrome to some extent.<ref>{{cite journal | first = Tony | last = Quine |  title = Addicted to space: An appreciation of Anousheh Ansari, Part II | journal = Spaceflight | publisher = [[British Interplanetary Society]] (BIS) | issn = 0038-6340 | volume = 49 |date=April 2007 | pages = 144 | issue = 4}}</ref>

The protracted testing period also contributed to Schweickart not being assigned to the Apollo 12 backup crew. When he returned to Houston, "[[Al Shepard]] [Slayton's deputy], for whatever reason, instead of putting me back on Apollo, put me on to [[Skylab]] ... Al had his own agenda of who went where and whatnot. So I cycled into Skylab at the time."<ref name="jsc.nasa.gov">{{Cite web|url=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/SchweickartRL/RLS_10-19-99.pdf|title=NASA – Johnson Space Center History|date=February 11, 2015|access-date=May 22, 2016|archive-date=January 28, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170128113608/https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/SchweickartRL/RLS_10-19-99.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Schweickart has also observed that he was "not one of Al's boys", alluding to the political  [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberalism]] that he shared with his then-wife, Clare; Slayton felt that her fervent political stances (including [[civil rights]] activism) "caused him a few problems with his colleagues."<ref name="books.google.com"/><ref name="jsc.nasa.gov"/> During this period, a Houston radio broadcaster characterized Schweickart as "the closest thing to a [[freak scene|freak]] astronaut" after he was photographed escorting [[Maharishi Mahesh Yogi]] on a tour of NASA's headquarters.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PV-RAwAAQBAJ&q=freak+astronaut&pg=PA195|title=No Requiem for the Space Age: The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture|last1=Tribbe|first1=Matthew|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0199313525|access-date=October 20, 2020|archive-date=October 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017021831/https://books.google.com/books?id=PV-RAwAAQBAJ&q=freak+astronaut&pg=PA195#v=snippet&q=freak%20astronaut&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

Along with backup science pilot [[Story Musgrave]] and backup pilot [[Bruce McCandless II]], Schweickart was assigned as backup commander of [[Skylab 2]], the first crewed American [[space station]] mission, which flew during the spring of 1973. Following the loss of the space station's thermal shield during launch, he assumed responsibility for the development of hardware and procedures for erecting an emergency solar shade and deploying a jammed solar array wing, operations that saved the space station.<ref name="SP400ch4">{{cite web |url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-400/ch4.htm |title=SP-400 Skylab, Our First Space Station |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |year=1977 |publisher=[[NASA]] |access-date=May 8, 2013 |archive-date=February 25, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225153426/http://history.nasa.gov/SP-400/ch4.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

After serving on the support crew of [[Skylab 4]], Schweickart was more interested in cultivating managerial skills than "[going] over to the [[Space Shuttle]] development work which was under way ... by that time, I had, you know, done a lot of work on Gemini in a support role, and then, of course, everything on Apollo, and now all of this on Skylab, and to go cycle back into the very beginning of the Space Shuttle, which was not going to fly for, at that point, something like six years and best guess of anybody in the business was maybe eight years, I figured, you know, another eight years of basically going to the same kinds of meetings, making the same kinds of decisions, going to the same places ... it was like 'been there, done that.'"<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web|url=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/SchweickartRL/SchweickartRL_3-8-00.htm|title=NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Edited Oral History Transcript|date=February 11, 2015|access-date=May 22, 2016|archive-date=June 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616222944/http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/SchweickartRL/SchweickartRL_3-8-00.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

While retaining his flight status, he was reassigned to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as Director of User Affairs in the Office of Applications in 1974. In this capacity, he was responsible for transferring NASA technology (primarily [[Landsat 1]] applications) to the outside world and working with technology users (including the [[U.S. Department of Agriculture]] and water resources managers) to bring an understanding of their needs into NASA. He came to regard this as a "thankless position" and a "very hard sell" to potential clients due to their intrinsic resistance to new processes; this and the dearth of immediate flight opportunities ultimately precipitated his departure from NASA in 1977.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>