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- August 5, 1930: Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander and the first man to set
foot on the moon, was born. He was almost killed when a malfunction sent his
first spacecraft, Gemini 8, into an uncontrollable spin in orbit.
- August 6, 1961: the second human being to orbit the Earth began his trip. He
was Soviet cosmonaut Gherman S. Titov.
- August 7, 1959: we saw Earth from space for the first time, courtesy of
Explorer 6.
- August 7: Cirroc Lofton,
Star Trek's Jake Sisko, was born.
- August 8: Terry Nation,
creator of the BBC sci-fi series Blake's 7
as well as the writer who spawned the
Daleks, was born. He died in
1997.
- August 8, 1978: Pioneer Venus 2 was launched, loaded down with several probes
to sample the atmosphere of Venus.
- August 8, 1991: James Irwin, Apollo 15 lunar module pilot, died.
- August 10, 1965: Actress Claudia Christian (Babylon 5's Susan Ivanova) was born.
- August 11, 1962: Vostok 3 was launched by the Soviets with their third
cosmonaut on board, to be joined a day later by Vostok 4. Though the two
capsules couldn't physically dock and didn't even have enough precision
maneuvering capability to rendezvous, they passed within four miles of each
other. It was the first time two manned space vehicles shared the sky, though
not as important to space exploration as the later Gemini 6/7 mission and the
Soviets' own first orbital docking in 1969.
- August 12: John Nathan-Turner, producer of
Doctor Who from
1980 through its
cancellation by the BBC in 1989, was
born.
- August 12, 1977: The space shuttle broke free of its Boeing 747 mothership for
the first time when test shuttle Enterprise, with a crew of two, made a safe
test landing.
- August 16, 1898: American astronomer W.H. Pickering found yet another moon of
Saturn using a new method of observation: comparing photographic plates. The
satellite turned out to be Phoebe, an irregular moon orbiting Saturn
backwards; it may be an asteroid captured by the planet's gravity.
- August 16, 1938: Stuart Roosa, Apollo 14 command module pilot, was born.
- August 17, 1930: Harve
Bennett, the producer who resurrected the Star
Trek film franchise, was born.
He was also producer of the Six Million Dollar Man and Time Trax, among
others.
- August 17, 1958: Man's first moon shot blew up in his face; the aptly named
Pioneer 0 (zero) unmanned probe's booster rocket exploded on the launch pad.
- August 17, 1970: The Soviet Venera 7 probe was the first man-made object to
reach the surface of Venus, but couldn't withstand the planet's intense heat
and atmospheric pressure long enough to send any information back to Earth.
- August 19, 1787: Astronomer William Herschel (whose real first name was
actually Wilhelm) discovered Saturn's moons Enceladus and Mimas with a
12-meter reflector telescope.
- August 19, 1921: Gene
Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek,
was born.
- August 19, 1938: Diana Muldaur, Doctor Pulaski from the
second season of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, was born.
- August 19, 1952: Jonathan Frakes,
Star Trek's Commander Riker, was born.
- August 20, 1939: Anthony
Ainley, the second actor to have a long stint as the villainous Master
on Doctor Who, was born.
- August 20, 1943: Sylvester McCoy, alias
Doctor Who's seventh incarnation, was
born. He played the role from 1987 to
1989 in its final three years on the
BBC and reprised his role in the opening moments of the 1996 Doctor Who movie.
- August 20, 1962: Sophie
Aldred was born. She played Ace, Sylvester McCoy's
time-traveling sidekick on Doctor Who.
- August 20, 1975: Viking 1 was launched. It was the the first and most advanced
probe to land on Mars.
- August 20, 1977: Voyager 2 was launched, braving all odds and surviving the
entire twelve-year Grand Tour of the four largest outer planets despite
technical problems and budgetary cutbacks. It was the first visitor to Uranus
and Neptune. August is Voyager 2's month - read on.
- August 20, 1989: The Grand Tour concluded as Voyager 2 soared a mere
3,000 miles above Neptune's north pole, its closest encounter yet. It
found complete rings that are only partially seen with the best ground-based
telescopes, six new moons, and volcanoes that erupt "molten ice" - equivalent
to scorching lava in the -236 Celsius climate - on the surface of Neptune's
large moon Triton. Those were the voyages, and this was the real Voyager.
Captain Janeway would be real lucky if her ship's even half as durable as
this one.
- August 21, 1965: Gemini 5 was launched.
- August 21, 1993: America's billion-dollar Mars Explorer probe was lost when a
design flaw in its fuel tank destroyed it just after it reached Mars orbit.
- August 23, 1974: British stuntman/martial arts expert/actor Ray
Park (Star Wars Episode
I's Darth Maul and X-Men's Toad) was born.
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- August 24, 1934: Kenny
Baker, credited with playing the "role" of R2-D2 in the
Star Wars movies, was born. How much
time did he actually spend in that thing?
- August 24, 1974: Jennifer Lien, Star Trek: Voyager's Kes, was born.
- August 25, 1981: Voyager 2 swung by Saturn at a distance of only 63,000
miles, discovering six new moons on the way. It used Saturn's gravity to
slingshot it to Uranus, which it didn't reach for another five years.
- August 26: Michael Okuda, Star
Trek graphic designer and tech advisor, was born. He created the visual
style for all the computer displays on the Star Trek TV series and movies
since 1986.
- August 27, 1962: Mariner 2 was launched and became the first probe to make a
successful flyby of Venus.
- August 30, 1931: Jack Swigert, backup command module pilot for the ill-fated
Apollo 13 mission who made the trip when
primary crew member Ken Mattingly was declared unfit for duty, was born.
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Information
originally compiled for use in LogBook: The
'Zine
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