NASA begins soliciting studies from contractors for an unmanned robotic spacecraft to land on the moon. Intended to carry scientific instruments and television cameras to examine the moon from ground-level, the Surveyor landers are intended to reap their own benefit in the form of scientific data, but they will also serve as advanced scouting support missions for possible later manned landings on the moon.
Recent Jet Propulsion Laboratory hire Michael Minovitch submits the first of a series of papers and technical memorandums on the possibility of using carefully-calculated gravitational assist maneuvers to speed transit time between celestial bodies while requiring minimal engine/fuel use. Where most previous scientific thought concentrated on using engine burns (and a lot of fuel) to cancel the effects of a planet’s gravity, Minovitch demonstrated that gravity could be a big help with a carefully calculated trajectory. Though nearly every planetary mission since then has capitalized on Minovitch’s research, it was initially rejected by JPL. Minovitch’s calculations are later revisited by Caltech grad student Gary Flandro, who flags down a particular combination of Minovitch’s pre-computed trajectories for a “grand tour” of the outer solar system, a mission which will eventually be known – in a somewhat scaled-down, less grand form – as Voyager.
The 33rd episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part three of the story now collectively known as The Sensorites.
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs the tenth episode of the science fiction series The Stranger, starring Ron Haddrick.
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After intense solar activity results in a brief swelling of Earth’s atmosphere, Skylab‘s days are numbered: it has already been slowed enough by contact with the outermost layers of the atmosphere to come tumbling back to Earth. Unoccupied since 1974, the now-derelict space station is expected to disintegrate harmlessly over the Indian Ocean, but NASA is caught off-guard when unexpectedly large chunks of Skylab survive long enough to crash into the Australian outback. No one on the ground is hurt, and NASA is jokingly fined for littering.
ITV airs the 63rd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Carol Drinkwater (Chocky) guest stars.
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The first episode of Werewolf airs on the recently-launched Fox Network, the first genre series in the new network’s three-month history. Created by Frank Lupo (The A-Team, Hunter), the series stars John J. York and Lance LeGault, with guest appearances by Chuck Connors (The Rifleman), Ethan Phillips (Benson, Star Trek: Voyager), Michelle Johnson (Blame It On Rio), and Raphael Sbarge (Once Upon A Time, Star Trek: Voyager).
Having weathered the storm of the 1983 video game industry crash longer than most, Coleco Industries, maker of the early ’80s Colecovision video game system, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, Coleco is America’s sixth largest toy company, but the video game industry isn’t its downfall. Overproduction of the company’s Cabbage Patch Kids toys has proven to be fatal, with two straight years of annual losses exceeding $100,000,000. The remains of Coleco are eventually bought up by rival toymaker Hasbro.
Having announced the band’s breakup, Crowded House releases Recurring Dream, a final album – priamrily a greatest hits collection – with the band’s original lineup. Despite having left the band months before, drummer Paul Hester rejoins Neil Finn and Nick Seymour to record three new songs for the album.
Actress Claudia Christian, having completed four seasons on the syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5, allows her contract to lapse prior to the start of production on the show’s fifth season (slated to air on cable channel TNT). Within days, rumors circulate on the internet that Christian has been fired from the show, touching off a fandom firestorm. The first scripts for the fifth season are revised accordingly to feature a new character, Captain Elizabeth Lochley, and actress Tracy Scoggins is cast as the new character within weeks. Christian’s appearances in the two upcoming Babylon 5 TV movies (set to premiere in 1998) and the final episode of the series itself (already filmed) are unaffected.
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Showtime airs the 60th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. David McCallum (The Man From UNCLE, The Invisible Man, Sapphire & Steel) guest stars in a remake of an episode from the 1960s Outer Limits series.
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The eighth episode of Mark Verheiden’s science fiction series Timecop is broadcast on ABC, starring Ted King and Don Stark, loosely based on the 1994 movie of the same name (also co-written by Verheiden). Rena Sofer guest stars. (The series has already been cancelled at this point; ABC is burning off the remaining episodes into off-season time slots.)
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Welsh toy company Dapol announces the release of a box set of “early” Daleks depicted in various 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The set, containing four uniquely modified Dalek action figures, is a limited run of 2,000 units.
Benbella Books releases the non-fiction Star Trek essay anthology “Boarding The Enterprise”, edited by and featuring contributions from David Gerrold. Other contributors include Norman Spinrad, D.C. Fontana, Paul Levinson and Eric Greene. theLogBook.com webmaster Earl Green aided with this book’s fact-checking and editing.
Syfy airs the 54th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Ming-Na Wen (Agents Of SHIELD, The Book Of Boba Fett) and Tembi Locke (Sliders) guest star.
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Scientists, analyzing Hubble Space Telescope spectographic data taken during a transit of the exoplanet HD 189733b against its parent star, reveal that they have determined the planet’s color in visible light. The doomed gas giant, only 63 light years away, is said to be a “deep azure blue” not unlike how Earth’s oceans appear from space, though in this case the color is theorized to be the result not of water, but of silicate rain – airborne glass – blowing in 7,000mph winds as the atmosphere is blasted away due to the planet’s proximity to its sun.
Dr. Claudia Alexander dies at the age of 56, while still serving as the chief scientist of a suite of U.S.-provided instruments aboard ESA’s history-making Rosetta mission. Renowned as one of JPL’s finest research scientists, she was a member of the Galileo plasma instrument science team before becoming, by the mission’s end in 2003, the project manager of that mission to Jupiter.
Nintendo of Japan CEO Satoru Iwata dies as a result of complications from gall bladder surgery. As the head of game developer HAL Laboratories, Iwata oversaw games in the Kirby, Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon series, until he replaced outgoing Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi in 2002. His tenure saw the introduction of the Nintendo DS handheld, the Wii console, and the wildly popular Amiibo figurines, as well as unprecedented interaction with fans and customers on the internet.
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity lifts off from Spaceport New Mexico on its first fully-crewed flight with passengers, including Virgin Galactic founder/owner Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses (who flew aboard a previous flight), Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett, with veteran Virgin Galactic pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci at the vehicle’s controls. The flight is suborbital only, but does earn the rookies among its crew their commercial astronaut wings. The flight was only announced at the beginning of July, where some observers interpreted the announcement as an attempt to upstage the previous announcement that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin would be flying a fully crewed New Shepard capsule on July 20th. Independent flight of Unity lasts approximate 14 minutes, from drop/booster ignition from its carrier aircraft to landing (total time in both air and space for those aboard is approximately 58 minutes, from takeoff of the carrier aircraft to Unity‘s touchdown on the runway). (The flight system of carrier aircraft and air-dropped spacecraft was established almost exactly 17 years earlier in the first SpaceShipOne flight by Scaled Composites, which sold the design to Virgin Galactic for commercial development.)
The CW airs the 91st episode of Legends Of Tomorrow, starring Caity Lotz, Matt Ryan, Jes Macallan, and Tala Ashe.
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