Nation: Skylab's Spectacular Death

While scientists held their breath, the satellite crashed

Western Australia's Nullarbor (meaning no trees) Plain is an arid, limestone plateau that lies east of the old gold-rush towns of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, southeast of Comet Vale and northeast of Grass Patch. It is a barren, almost unpopulated land of sand and saltbush. Out of the blackness of the southwestern sky one night last week, the fringe of this isolated region was visited by a fiery symbol of the Western world's most advanced technology: the final, fatal fall of Skylab.

Right in its path was...