Categories
Apollo Apollo-Soyuz Crewed Spaceflight

Apollo’s final descent danger

Apollo-SoyuzThe “age of Apollo” comes to an unbreathable end in an incident during the return of the final Apollo spacecraft. Returning from their successful Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight, astronauts Thomas Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand are exposed to fumes from their vehicle’s own reaction control thrusters, thanks to the thrusters firing after the capsule’s air vents open during descent toward the Pacific Ocean. Brand reportedly passes out momentarily due to the toxic fumes. All three astronauts are hospitalized for two weeks in Hawaii.

Categories
Music

Split Enz makes Mental Notes

Split EnzMushroom Records releases the debut Split Enz album Mental Notes, the product of two months of concentrated recording sessions in Sydney, Australia (and three years of playing live and building a following). The album is a modest success story in Australia and the band’s native New Zealand, and is critically acclaimed for its originality.

More about Split Enz in Music Reviews

Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Viking

Viking 1 lifts off

VikingThe Viking 1 unmanned space probe, built by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, lifts off en route to the planet Mars. Intended to gather and study soil samples on-site on the Martian surface, Viking 1 will take eleven months to reach the red planet. Viking 1 is not the first attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars; the Soviet Union has been attempting such a feat since the 1960s.

Categories
Television

Space: 1999: Breakaway

Space: 1999ITV airs the first episode of Gerry Anderson’s new live action series Space: 1999, Breakaway. Space: 1999’s lavish budget, sleek sets and impressive miniature effects work make it the TV science fiction saga to beat in the 1970s (at least visually). Isaac Asimov even reviews it in the New York Times, giving the show’s shaky science a pass in favor of dramatic necessity.

More about Space: 1999 in the LogBook

Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Viking

Viking 2 launched

MarsNASA launches the Viking 2 lander and orbiter, designed and operated by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, aboard a Titan IIIE rocket bound for Mars. The combined Viking 2 spacecraft will take nearly a year to reach Mars, achieving orbit in August 1976 and surveying the surface for suitable landing sites before the northern plain named Utopia Planitia is selected for a September 1976 landing attempt.

Categories
Television

“The Dirty Dozen in space”

Blake's 7In a meeting with BBC Head of Series & Serials Ronnie Marsh, Dalek and Survivors creator Terry Nation – who has already found himself at odds with the producer of Survivors – pitches a new series idea. Described as “The Dirty Dozen in space,” Nation’s series idea envisions a slightly disharmonious group of rebels taking up arms against a totalitarian, almost Orwellian future government. The concept, which Nation names Blake’s 7 at the meeting, will take a few years to make it to the screen.

More about Blake’s 7 in the LogBook

Categories
Television

Six Million Dollar Man: The Return Of The Bionic Woman – Part 1

Six Million Dollar ManThe 36th episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Lindsay Wagner guest stars in the third season premiere; Martin E. Brooks joins the cast, taking over the role of Dr. Rudy Wells.

More about The Six Million Dollar Man in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
This series is not yet fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.