What was the name of the first U.S. space station?

On May 14, 1973, NASA took a massive Saturn V rocket stage and turned it into Skylab, the ultimate home away from home among the stars. The station was huge by space standards at 99 feet long and 22 feet wide, which gave astronauts actual room to float around instead of being crammed into a capsule like sardines. Things went sideways right from launch when the micrometeoroid shield ripped off and took one of the main solar panels with it, leaving the station overheated and underpowered. The first crew had to deploy a makeshift sunshade to cool things down and basically perform emergency surgery on a space station, which is a much more stressful home repair than just fixing a creaky door frame. The station hosted three different crews over about nine months, and they conducted all sorts of experiments while living 270 miles above Earth. Skylab eventually fell back to Earth in 1979, scattering pieces across Australia and earning NASA a $400 littering fine.