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Matters of Life & Death

Jolene Blalock, future Star Trek actress, born

Jolene Blalock as T'PolFuture Star Trek: Enterprise co-star Jolene Blalock is born in California. After a career in modeling, she will move into acting, with her role as Enterprise’s resident Vulcan crew member T’Pol standing out as her most recognized work. She will also appear in such TV series as Legend Of The Seeker, G vs. E and Stargate SG-1.

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Categories
Computers Video Games

Games with cartridges

Alpex Corporation, an American computer company, files “the ‘555 Patent” for a “television display control apparatus” capable of loading software from ROM chips embedded in swappable cartridges and other media. This patent effectively shifts the infant video game industry from a hardware-based model to a software-based model, and is licensed by Fairchild Semiconductor for the first cartridge-based video game, the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (later known as Channel F), a year later; the resulting sea change forces a sudden reassessment in the R&D departments at Atari and Magnavox, among others. Due to the remarkably broad nature of patent #4026555, Alpex will be able to take nearly every video game manufacturer to court to force them to license the technology from Alpex through the early ’90s. The first major challenge to Alpex’s patent will come from Nintendo in 1986, a case that will eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 – by which time Alpex will go bankrupt pursuing the case.

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Mariner Uncrewed Spaceflight

Mariner 10: one last visit to Mercury

Mariner 10The NASA/JPL probe to the inner planets, Mariner 10, makes its last flyby of Mercury, zipping over the planet’s north pole at an altitude of just over 200 miles, and taking the last close-up pictures of Mercury until the Messenger space probe in 2008. Just over a week after its final Mercury encounter, Mariner 10 runs out of fuel and is instructed to shut down. The next Mariner probes, Mariners 11 and 12, are slated to venture toward the outer solar system, and eventually undergo a name change, becoming Voyagers 1 and 2 – making Mariner 10 the last of the Mariner space probes.

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Television

Six Million Dollar Man: The Bionic Woman – Part 2

Six Million Dollar ManThe 33rd episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Lindsay Wagner and Malachi Throne guest star. Although the character of Jaime Sommers is killed off in this episode, audience reaction is strong enough to merit not only a return appearance in the third season, but an entire spinoff series.

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Television

Strange New World

Strange New WorldABC premieres the made-for-TV movie Strange New World, starring John Saxon, Keene Curtis, and Catherine Bach. Created by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (but heavily rewritten by writers hired by Warner Bros.), Strange New World is the third attempt to build a series pilot around the story of an astronaut frozen in suspended animation and reawakened only after the fall of human civilization. Again, there is no series pickup, though the concept will eventually form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death.

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Columbia Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

Columbia under construction

ColumbiaConstruction begins on Space Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle 102 (OV-102 for short), the shuttle orbiter that NASA intends to launch as early as 1977. But OV-102 encounters the inherent pitfalls of being the first of its kind: years of delays are ahead, with many of the delays linked to the complicated system of protective thermal tiles designed to bear the brunt of the shuttle’s punishing re-entry through the atmosphere. (The test orbiter, later named Enterprise, is never intended for spaceflight, so it only has to conform to the shape and weight of a returning shuttle for landing tests, and therefore it doesn’t face the same hurdles.) OV-102’s first flight won’t take place until 1981, leaving a six-year gap between manned American spaceflights; during this period OV-102 will be named Columbia.

Categories
Television

Kolchak: The Sentry

Kolchak: The Night StalkerABC airs the 20th and final episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, based on the 1973 TV movie The Night Stalker and starring Darren McGavin. Tom Bosley (Happy Days) and John Hoyt (Star Trek: The Cage) guest star. A remake with a new cast, simply titled Night Stalker, will be attempted in the early 21st century, also on ABC, but will have an even shorter lifespan than the original series.

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Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Soyuz

Soyuz 18a: “The April 5th Anomaly”

SoyuzThe two-man crew selected to become the second group of occupants for the Soviet Union’s Salyut 4 space station nearly rockets into disaster. Interstage connectors, intended to open simultaneously to allow the third stage of the booster to carry the Soyuz spacecraft into orbit, fail to open on cue, leaving the third stage dragging the dead weight of the spent second stage, changing the trajectory of the entire vehicle. The Soyuz capsule carrying cosmonauts Vasili Lazarev and Oleg Makarov is blasted free, and the two men experience acceleration of 23 Gs as the capsule roars toward a bruisingly rough emergency landing. As if that’s not bad enough, the Soyuz capsule lands perilously close to the USSR’s border with China, and rescue crews spend over 24 hours looking for the crew. The usually secretive Soviet space agency reluctantly reveals details of the mission to NASA, with whom they are collaborating ahead of the historic Apollo-Soyuz joint launch.