Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-man crews: SL-2, SL-3 and SL-4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, hundreds of experiments. Unable to be re-boosted by the Space Shuttle, not ready until the early 1980s, Skylab burned up in the Earth's atmosphere in 1979, over the Indian Ocean; as of 2019, it was the only space station operated by the United States. A permanent US station was planned starting in 1969, but funding for this was canceled and replaced with US participation in an International Space Station in 1993. Skylab included a workshop, a solar observatory, several hundred life science and physical science experiments, was launched uncrewed into low Earth orbit by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a weight of 170,000 pounds; this was the final mission for the Saturn V rocket, more known for carrying the crewed Moon landing missions.

Three subsequent missions delivered three-astronaut crews in the Apollo command and service module launched by the smaller Saturn IB rocket. For the final two crewed missions to Skylab, NASA assembled a backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB in case an in-orbit rescue mission was needed, but this vehicle was never flown; the station was damaged during launch when the micrometeoroid shield tore away from the workshop, taking one of the main solar panel arrays with it and jamming the other main array. This deprived Skylab of most of its electrical power and removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable; the first crew freed the jammed solar panels to save Skylab. This was the first time. Skylab included the Apollo Telescope Mount, a multiple docking adapter with two docking ports, an airlock module with extravehicular activity hatches, the orbital workshop, the main habitable space inside Skylab. Electrical power came from solar arrays and fuel cells in the docked Apollo CSM.

The rear of the station included a large waste tank, propellant tanks for maneuvering jets, a heat radiator. Astronauts conducted numerous experiments aboard Skylab during its operational life; the telescope advanced solar science, observation of the Sun was unprecedented. Astronauts took thousands of photographs of Earth, the Earth Resources Experiment Package viewed Earth with sensors that recorded data in the visible and microwave spectral regions; the record for human time spent in orbit was extended beyond the 23 days set by the Soyuz 11 crew aboard Salyut 1 to 84 days by the Skylab 4 crew. Plans to reuse Skylab were stymied by delays in development of the Space Shuttle, Skylab's decaying orbit could not be stopped. Skylab's atmospheric reentry began on July 1979, amid worldwide media attention. Before re-entry, NASA ground controllers tried to adjust Skylab's orbit to minimize the risk of debris landing in populated areas, targeting the south Indian Ocean, successful. Debris showered Western Australia, recovered pieces indicated that the station had disintegrated lower than expected.

As the Skylab program drew to a close, NASA's focus had shifted to the development of the Space Shuttle. NASA space station and laboratory projects included Spacelab, Shuttle-Mir, Space Station Freedom, merged into the International Space Station. Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, other early advocates of crewed space travel, expected until the 1960s that a space station would be an important early step in space exploration. Von Braun participated in the publishing of a series of influential articles in Collier's magazine from 1952 to 1954, titled "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!". He envisioned a large, circular station 250 feet in diameter that would rotate to generate artificial gravity and require a fleet of 7,000-ton space shuttles for construction in orbit; the 80 men aboard the station would include astronomers operating a telescope, meteorologists to forecast the weather, soldiers to conduct surveillance. Von Braun expected that future expeditions to the Mars would leave from the station.

The development of the transistor, the solar cell, telemetry, led in the 1950s and early 1960s to uncrewed satellites that could take photographs of weather patterns or enemy nuclear weapons and send them to Earth. A large station was no longer necessary for such purposes, the United States Apollo program to send men to the Moon chose a mission mode that would not need in-orbit assembly. A smaller station that a single rocket could launch retained value, for scientific purposes. In 1959, von Braun, head of the Development Operations Division at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, submitted his final Project Horizon plans to the U. S. Army; the overall goal of Horizon was to place men on the Moon, a mission that would soon be taken over by the forming NASA. Although concentrating on the Moon missions, von Braun detailed an orbiting laboratory built out of a Horizon upper stage, an idea used for Skylab. A number of NASA centers studied various space station designs in the early 1960s. Studies looked at platforms launched by the Saturn V, followed up by crews launched on Saturn IB using an Apollo command and service module, or a Gemini capsule on a Titan II-C, the latter being much less expensive in the case where cargo was not needed.

Proposals ranged from an Apollo-based station with two to three men, or a small "canister" for four men with Gemini capsules resupplying it, to a large

Harry Wayne Huizenga Sr. was an American businessman and entrepreneur. He founded AutoNation, Waste Management, Inc. and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League, the Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball. Harry Wayne Huizenga was of Dutch descent, his grandfather, Harm Huizenga, came to the United States from the Netherlands. Starting with a horse and wagon, Harm Huizenga built trash hauling service, Huizenga & Sons Scavenger Co. in suburban Chicago in 1894. Wayne Huizenga's parents, Gerrit Harry Huizenga, a cabinet maker, Jean Huizenga, a home decorator. Huizenga was born at Little Company of Mary Hospital, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on December 29, 1937, the first child in a family of garbage haulers, he had one sister, five years younger. He attended Timothy Christian School until his mid-teens. In early 1953, the Huizenga family settled in the Fort Lauderdale area, his father became a building contractor in a booming real estate market.

The remainder of Huizenga's high school years were spent at Pine Crest School, where he was a member of the football team and senior class treasurer. After high school graduation in 1956, he moved back to Chicago where most of his friends and other relatives still lived, enrolled for three semesters at Calvin College, a liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, but he dropped out before the end of his sophomore year. For five years after graduation, he was taking on low-wage jobs and enrolled for six months in September 1959 in the army reserves on full-time service. In Fort Lauderdale, Huizenga started a garbage hauling business, as his grandfather had done in Chicago in 1894. In 1962, he started the Southern Sanitation Service by borrowing US$5,000 from his father and sweet-talking with a rival trash hauler into selling him used trucks. Beginning with a single garbage truck in 1968, pursuing customers in an aggressive manner, he created Waste Management, Inc. an entity that would become a Fortune 500 company.

Huizenga purchased many independent garbage hauling companies. In the early 1980s, he had grown Waste Management into one of the largest waste-disposal companies in the United States. In 1984, he left the company and soon again, he was buying companies including suppliers of portable toilets and water bottles for home coolers. Huizenga repeated the process with Blockbuster Video, acquiring a handful of stores in 1987, with the company becoming the leading movie-rental chain in the U. S. by 1994. After a process of building and acquiring auto dealerships, in 1996, he formed AutoNation, which became the nation's largest automotive dealer. In 2004, he sold Boca Resorts, a group of hotels that included The Hyatt Pier 66 Hotel and the Radisson Bahia Mar Hotel & Marina in Fort Lauderdale, The Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton and several others in Naples and Arizona to private equity firm Blackstone as part of a $1.25 billion deal. In 2010, Huizenga along with Steve Berrard, former CEO of Blockbuster Video and AutoNation, took on a majority stake in Swisher Hygiene, after paying $8.1 million to founder Patrick Swisher and his wife, Laura.

Swisher Hygiene went on to be traded on the NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange via a 2010 reverse takeover deal in which the company acquired the publicly traded CoolBrands International, a Canada-based frozen food and dessert manufacturer. CoolBrands had divested its core businesses in 2007. Huizenga was notable for introducing both baseball and ice hockey to the South Florida area as the creator and initial owner of the Florida Marlins and Florida Panthers, he bought the cable television channel SportsChannel Florida in 1996 to air his teams' games in the region. He was criticized for naming the two teams for the state of Florida rather than the city of Miami; as an advocate for the city of Fort Lauderdale, he explained that his goal was to include Broward County and Palm Beach County in his teams' fan base. In 1994, Huizenga's brother-in-law was unsuccessful. In 1990, during a period of financial hardship for the franchise, Huizenga purchased 15% of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and its stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

Founding owner Joe Robbie had died, his surviving family found it difficult to keep the team afloat. In turn, Huizenga bought the remaining shares of the team for $115 million to obtain full ownership in 1994, he changed the name of Joe Robbie Stadium, selling the naming rights to Fruit of the Loom brand Pro Player for $2 million per year for 10 years. It has since been renamed many times – as Dolphins Stadium, Dolphin Stadium, Land Shark Stadium, Sun Life Stadium, as well as a few other corporate names, such as Fruit of the Loom, Hard Rock Stadium. In 2008, Huizenga sold 50% of the team and 50% of the stadium to Stephen M. Ross, chairman of The Related Companies. Huizenga remained the managing general partner of the franchise until January 2009, when he sold another 45% of the team and as much of the stadium to Ross. Thus, Ross became managing general partner with 95% ownership of the Dolphins and the stadium, Huizenga retained a 5% share of both club and stadium. Huizenga remained the proprietor of 50% of the land.

In the early 1990s, Huizenga served a two-year probationary period with the National Football Leag

The Squeeze is a 2015 feature film starring Jeremy Sumpter as Augie, a young golfer who just won the local tournament by 15 strokes and tied and broke the public course record during the tournament, is seduced by a gambler to play golf for bet money. Everything goes well until he goes to Las Vegas and has his life and his family on the line on a high stake gambling scheme; the film was based on the real-life events of Keith Flatt. The film was written and directed by Terry Jastrow, a senior producer of many golf tournaments, winner of 7 Emmy Awards and is recognized by his innovations on golf and sports television coverage. Jeremy Sumpter as Augie Jillian Murray as Natalie Christopher McDonald as Riverboat Katherine LaNasa as Jessie Michael Nouri as Jimmy Diamonds Jason Dohring as Aaron Bolt Mekia Cox as Lana David O'Donnell as John Tom David Andrews as Billy Bob Official website The Squeeze on IMDb