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- December 2, 1988: Space shuttle Atlantis is launched on the 27th
flight of the U.S. shuttle program.
- December 2, 1990: Carrying the ASTRO-1 ultraviolet/X-ray astronomy
package, as well as Apollo/Soyuz veteran Vance Brand, space shuttle Columbia
takes off on its tenth flight.
- December 2, 1991: Space shuttle Discovery lifts off for mission
number STS-53.
- December 2, 1993: Space shuttle Endeavour is launched en route to a
mission to repair the faulty Hubble Space Telescope, requiring hours of risky
spacewalks.
- December 4, 1965: Gemini 7, manned by Frank Borman and James Lovell, was
launched ahead of Gemini 6 for the first experimental rendezvous in space.
- December 4, 1973: Jupiter received its first visitor from Earth; Pioneer 10
made its closest approach to the giant planet.
- December 5: 1974: Pioneer 11 visited Jupiter exactly one year and one day after
Pioneer 10's flyby; Pioneer 11 went on to Saturn, arriving five years later.
(A gravitational slingshot maneuver allowed the Voyager spacecraft to travel
from Jupiter to Saturn in just one to two years in 1979-80.)
- December 6, 1986: Colin
Baker's short tenure as the sixth Doctor
Who ended with the 14th part of Trial
of a Time Lord. Baker was fired shortly afterward over a contract
dispute with the BBC.
- December 6, 1989: Part 3 of
Survival, the last
BBC-produced Doctor Who episode to this
date, starring Sylvester McCoy, aired in England.
- December 7, 1947: Pint-sized actress Wendy Padbury, who played
companion Zoe in Patrick Troughton's final season in Doctor
Who, was born.
- December 7, 1972: The last human visit to the moon, Apollo 17 is launched; the
last two human explorers of the surface (so far) were Gene Cernan and civilian
geologist Harrison Schmitt. The command/service module in orbit was manned by
Ronald Evans.
- December 8, 1990: The Galileo space probe, launched in October 1989, swung past
Earth several months after a Venus flyby on its complex trajectory to reach
Jupiter.
- December 8, 1992: The Galileo space probe made its second return to Earth since
its 1989 launch, precisely two years since its previous revisitation.
- December 9, 1952: Michael Dorn,
Star Trek's Worf, was born.
- December 12, 1961: Sarah Sutton,
Doctor Who sidekick Nyssa, was born.
- December 12, 1994: Stu Roosa, Apollo 14 command module pilot, died.
- December 15, 1965: Gemini 6, with Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford aboard,
was launched; the crew conducted the first rendezvous maneuvers ever performed
in space, including bringing the two spacecraft as close together as within
one foot.
- December 15, 1968: Garrett Wang, Star Trek: Voyager's Ensign Harry Kim, was
born.
- December 15, 1984: The Soviet Union launched Vega 1, the first of two probes to
fly by Halley's Comet during its 1985-86 visit to the inner solar system.
Vega 1 also dropped a balloon probe into the atmosphere of Venus, whose
gravity was used to send Vega 1 on its way. Sister ship Vega 2 followed a
nearly identical trajectory, launched five days later.
- December 16, 1917: Arthur C. Clarke was born. He was the first proponent of a
global communications network via satellites in geostationary orbit (a concept
for which he won the Nobel Prize) and author of over 100 books, including the
novel and screenplay of 2001: A Space
Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama, and many, many more.
- December 16, 1929: Nicholas Courtney, a.k.a. Doctor Who's redoubtable Brigadier Alistair Gordon
Lethbridge-Stewart [retired], was born.
- December 17, 1929: Jacqueline Hill, who portrayed original
Doctor Who companion Barbara Wright, was
born.
- December 17: Hattie Hayridge, Holly II from
Red Dwarf, was born.
- December 18, 1947: Director Steven Spielberg was born.
- December 19, 1961: Matthew Waterhouse, ill-fated
Doctor Who companion Adric, was born.
- December 20, 1949: The master of sound, Alan Parsons, was
born.
- December 20, 1970: Nicole de Boer, Ezri Dax in the final season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (in addition to
numerous other roles in genre productions), was born.
- December 21, 1948: Actor Samuel L. Jackson, featured in such
films as Jurassic Park, Shaft and the second Star Wars trilogy (as Jedi Master Mace
Windu), was born.
- December 21, 1963: The fifth
half-hour installment of Doctor Who
introduced the Daleks; the episode airing the following week shot the
show's ratings into the 8-million range in England, raising the show from
obscurity to the beginnings of global fame. Dalek creator
Terry Nation undertook the task of
writing the script out of financial necessity when he lost his steady job as a
comedy writer!
- December 21, 1968: Apollo 8 is launched, taking Frank Borman, James Lovell, and
William Anders into lunar orbit. They were the first human beings to see the
far side of the moon for themselves.
- December 21, 1981: The final episode of
Blake's 7 aired on BBC 1. Its
surprisingly downbeat climax, combined
with its airdate just a few days before Christmas, reportedly sparked
contemplation of suicide among very sensitive members of the viewing public.
- December 24, 1941: British actor John Levene, known to fans
of 1970s Doctor Who as UNIT's Sergeant
Benton, was born. He now lives in America under the name John Anthony Blake.
- December 24, 1945: Director Nicholas Meyer, whose credits
include Time After Time, the very controversial nuclear war
movie The Day After, as well as
Star Trek II and
Star Trek VI, was born.
- December 25: Rick Berman,
current head of the Star Trek franchise, was
born.
- December 27, 1982: Jack Swigert,
Apollo 13 astronaut, died eight days
before embarking on a new career in a Congressional seat to which he had just
been elected.
- December 28, 1936: Nichelle Nichols,
Star Trek's Uhura, was born.
- December 28, 1974: Tom Baker's
seven-year reign as Doctor Who began
with episode 1 of Robot.
- December 30, 1947: Jeff Lynne,
lead singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter for the
Electric Light Orchestra and currently an
in-demand rock producer, was born.
- December 30, 1985: 37 years after the last discovery of a satellite of Uranus,
Voyager 2 spotted a small moon designated 1985 U1 (later renamed "Puck" by the
International Astronomical Society in keeping with the Shakespeare-derived
names of Uranus' moons).
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Information
originally compiled for use in LogBook: The
'Zine
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