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Television

Blake’s 7: Pressure Point

Blake's 7BBC1 premieres the 18th episode of Terry Nation’s science fiction series Blake’s 7. Jane Sherwin guest stars. This episode is the beginning of a story arc running through the remainder of the second season, concerning Blake’s search for the Federation’s central control facility; to up the stakes, the character of Gan (played by David Jackson) is killed off, though the first choice of series creator Terry Nation would have been the popular character of Vila.

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Television

Supertrain

SupertrainThe TV movie-of-the-week Supertrain airs on NBC, starring Edward Andrews and Patrick Collins. The movie revolves around the inaugural cross-country trip of an atomic-powered luxury passenger train; the expense involved in creating the sets and miniatures for that train will prove to be an expensive debacle for NBC when the ratings drop perilously for the weekly episodes afterward. Steve Lawrence, Char Fontane, Don Stroud, and Keenan Wynn guest star.

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Odyssey2 Video Games

Odyssey2

Odyssey2Having originally announced a programmable video game console in 1977 before almost cancelling the project, Magnavox launches its first cartridge-based video game console, the Odyssey2. Though intended to compete with the Atari VCS, the Odyssey2 is at a disadvantage thanks to its underpowered Intel processor and a limited graphics set.

More about the Odyssey2 in Phosphor Dot Fossils

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Television

Salvage 1: Shelter Five

Salvage 1The fourth episode of the series Salvage 1 airs on ABC, starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons), and Trish Stewart. Richard Jaeckel (Spenser For Hire) and Sam Groom (Police Surgeon, Otherworld) guest star.

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Music

Split Enz sparks a Frenzy

Split EnzMushroom Records releases the fourth Split Enz album, Frenzy, recorded after a long period of unemployment for the band, which went to the UK to find fame and became stranded there, too broke to return home. Most members of the group are dissatisfied with the finished album, feeling that it lacks the spark of demos they recorded during their England downtime, but it yields a genuine hit: Tim Finn’s punk-styled anthem “I See Red”.

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Crewed Spaceflight Salyut Soyuz

Soyuz 32

Soyuz 32The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 32 on a long-duration mission to space station Salyut 6, with cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin aboard. Over a record-setting 175 days, the new station crew conducts necessary repairs and upgrades to the station’s hardware, as well as conducting various experiments. With the arrival of equipment sent in the unmanned Progress 5 freighter in March, this is the first space crew to have a means to see ground controllers via a video link, rather than talking to them via radio; the cosmonauts also look forward to seeing family members during planned teleconferences. This is also the first crew to vacation in space, permitted a five-day break over May Day. Due to a major technical problem in the next manned Soyuz flight, the crew of Salyut 7 sets its duration record without a single visit from another cosmonaut.

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Television

Salvage 1: The Haunting Of Manderley Mansion

Salvage 1The fifth episode of the series Salvage 1 airs on ABC, starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons), and Trish Stewart. Richard Jaeckel (Spenser For Hire) guest stars in an episode that is decidedly more sci-fi than most of the series.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Voyager 1 and the rings of Jupiter

Jupiter's ringsAs it nears its closest approach to the planet Jupiter, NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe detects the first likely signs of a ring system around Jupiter’s equatorial region. Barely visible until Voyager 1 is behind the planet and can see them through scattered sunlight, the rings are only about 20 miles thick, but are over 150,000 miles in diameter. The lead time between Voyager 1’s visit and Voyager 2’s later flyby allows ground controllers to plan a better observation campaign for Voyager 1’s sister ship, and the rings are observed in more detail by the later Galileo and New Horizons missions.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Voyager 1 at Jupiter

JupiterThe unmanned NASA/JPL space probe Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to the giant planet Jupiter, a little over 200,000 miles away. While Voyager’s higher-resolution cameras trump any of the Pioneer images of Jupiter, the real revelation proves to be Jupiter’s four largest moons, revealing a smooth-but-cracked icy surface on Europa, craters on Ganymede and Callisto, and the colorful mountains of Io, whose biggest secret goes undiscovered until a few days after Voyager 1’s closest flyby.

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Television

Salvage 1: The Bugatti Treasure

Salvage 1The sixth episode of the series Salvage 1 airs on ABC, starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons), and Trish Stewart. Richard Jaeckel (Spenser For Hire) and Severn Darden (Battle For The Planet Of The Apes) guest star.

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Columbia Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

Columbia completed (almost)

ColumbiaSpace Shuttle Columbia is officially rolled out of the Rockwell International construction facility in Palmdale, California, even though her outer “skin” is still unfinished – NASA technicians continue working on perfecting the first spaceworthy shuttle’s thermal tiles for much of the next year, delaying the first launch until sometime in 1981 (just another in a series of delays for a vehicle that had been intended to fly as early as 1977).