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Video Games

Son of Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong JuniorNintendo follows up on the hugely successful Donkey Kong arcade game with its first sequel, Donkey Kong Junior. Not only does the new game prove that the original’s success wasn’t a fluke, but it gives Mario his name for the first time (well, his first name) and throws in some role reversal, putting the player in the position of having to save Donkey Kong, who was the first game’s nemesis.

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Challenger Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

Challenger rollout

ChallengerCompletely refitted from a lightweight airframe originally fabricated for stress, vibration and thermal testing, Space Shuttle Challenger is rolled out of her Rockwell International assembly plant in Palmdale, California. Experience gained in the construction of Challenger’s sister ship, Columbia, means that the second completed shuttle in the fleet is over one ton lighter than Columbia. Challenger would make her first flight in just under a year.

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Video Games

Jungle King

Jungle KingJapanese arcade game manufacturer Taito introduces its latest game, Jungle King, though the game will be known by that name for all of three months. A sampled “Tarzan yell” draws the legal wrath of the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, and Taito rushes to replace the loincloth-clad player character with a more covered-up, pith-helmeted explorer, retitling the game Jungle Hunt in the process.

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Columbia Crewed Spaceflight Enterprise Space Shuttle

“The test flights are over”

President Reagan at STS-4 landingSpace Shuttle Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, making its first-ever landing on a concrete runway. After greeting the returning astronauts and inspecting the shuttle, President Ronald Reagan – with the partially-dismantled prototype Enterprise as a backdrop – declares NASA’s Space Shuttle system fully operational, saying “the test flights are over.” Columbia Commander Ken Mattingly later reveals that there was tremendous pressure on NASA to land Columbia on Independence Day, regardless of how many mission objectives had been met, to maximize the publicity value of the President’s speech. But the quick turnaround time and almost-weekly flight schedule that NASA had publicized throughout the 1970s is already a pipe dream: post-mission the four missions flown so far prove that post-landing servicing of each orbiter takes longer than expected. Columbia won’t fly again until the first “operational” mission in November.

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Movies

Tron

TronDisney’s Tron – the first movie to pay homage to the ’80s video game craze and the first movie to arrive with video game tie-ins already in the works – premieres in theaters. Starring Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges, the film establishes of the most distinctive visual idea of the decade, that of a person being “sucked into” the digital world, where glowing body armor is worn.

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Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

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Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

Landsat 4

LandsatNASA launches Landsat 4, the fourth Landsat Earth resource observation satellite and the first to be redesigned from the ground up (previous Landsats had been based on NASA’s Nimbus satellites from the 1960s and ’70s). For the first time, Landsat data processing and distribution is handled by another government agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, which partners with NASA on all future Landsat satellites. Landsat 4 is the first Landsat to link up to NASA’s TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system, thus enabling real-time data transmission to Earth even when Landsat 4 isn’t passing over a ground station. Landsat 4 remains operational through the end of 1993.

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Crewed Spaceflight Salyut

Salyut 6 falls to Earth

Salyut 6The Soviet Union’s Salyut 6 space station, unoccupied for over a year, re-enters Earth’s atmosphere with the Kosmos 1267 module still docked; both the station and its added module disintegrate over unpopulated ocean.

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Atari VCS Video Games

Math Gran Prix

Math Gran PrixAtari releases its “edutainment” cartridge Math Gran Prix for the Atari VCS, a title designed to stave off critics of video games’ negative effects on kids’ schoolwork. Perhaps predictably, Math Gran Prix fails to cross the retail finish line – the same parents complaining that the Atari is keeping homework from getting done aren’t buying educational games for it.

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Video Games

Colecovision released

ColecovisionThe video game wars officially enter a new generation of hardware as Connecticut-based toymaker Coleco unveils the Colecovision home video game system. Packaged with an almost-but-not-quite-arcade-accurate port of the hit game Donkey Kong, and pushed by an advertising campaign focusing on the message of “bringing the arcade experience home,” Colecovision’s best opening gambit may be an “Expansion Module” allowing the use of Atari VCS games on the console, making it possible for Atari owners to step up without having to rebuild their game libraries from scratch.

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Crewed Spaceflight Salyut Soyuz

Soyuz T-7

Soyuz T-7The Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-7 mission lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome for a week-long stay in space, including a visit to space station Salyut 7. The three-person Soyuz crew includes the first woman in space since 1963. Cosmonauts Leonid Popov, Aleksandr Serebrov and Svetlana Savitskaya deliver supplies to Salyut 7 and perform experiments while docked to the station; on August 27th, they depart from the station aboard the Soyuz T-5 vehicle, leaving the newer T-7 capsule for the station crew’s use.

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Atari VCS Video Games

Pitfall!

Atari 2600Activision releases the Pitfall! cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Subtitled “The Adventure of Pitfall Harry” (implying that further adventures are yet to come), this becomes one of the Atari VCS’ “killer app” games, and is ported to other systems and updated for more modern platforms for decades to come.

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Video Games

Burgertime

BurgertimeData East’s food-obsessed arcade game Burgertime debuts in the United States, licensed locally by Midway. Challenging players – who may or may not be old salts at the fast-food business – to work their buns off trying to complete several burgers despite a revolt by the ingredients, Burgertime becomes a hit with seasoned gamers.

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Television

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Six, Part 4

Sapphire & SteelITV airs the 34th episode of P.J. Hammond’s science fiction series Sapphire & Steel, starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. David Collings and Edward de Souza guest star in the final episode; despite ending in a cliffhanger, the series ended due to the frequent lack of availability of its two leads. Big Finish Productions will revive Sapphire & Steel as a series of audio dramas in the 21st century.

This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.