theLogBook.com is a chronicle of how we used to imagine the future – an ever-expanding
logbook of what our entertainment, our culture, and even our brightest minds thought would happen.
It’s nostalgia – and some real history – that gives factual context to the fiction, cultural
context to the factual, and always looks to the future.

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Published On: August 9, 2016

Barry Jenner as Admiral RossActor Barry Jenner, a fixture on American TV since the 1970s, dies at the age of 75. Among the many series in which he played recurring roles (among them Dallas, Knots Landing and Family Matters), genre fans remember him best for the role of Admiral Ross, to whom Captain Sisko reported in the final two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also appeared in such genre series as V and Starman.

Published On: August 9, 1989

The AbyssJames Cameron’s undersea modern-day science fiction film The Abyss premieres, starring Ed Harris (The Right Stuff), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. The movie features some of the earliest examples of photorealistic CGI on film, but the extensive underwater photography was carried out with no small amount of risk to the cast. Read more

Published On: August 9, 1979

Sapphire & SteelITV airs the tenth episode of P.J. Hammond’s science fiction series Sapphire & Steel, starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. ITV is hit by a strike of its technicians’ union after this episode airs, shutting down the entire network well into the fall. The first four episodes of the series’ second storyline are repeated beginning in October, leading up to the series resuming new episodes.

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Published On: August 9, 1977

Mere weeks before the launch of the first Voyager spacecraft, NASA swaps Voyager 2 and Voyager 1. Repeated failures have plagued the attitude and articulation control and flight data subsystems in the spacecraft designated VGR77-2, leaving mission planners with doubt about its flightworthiness. VGR77-3 thus becomes Voyager 2, and VGR77-2 undergoes repairs to correct its problems before being designated Voyager 1. The two vehicles’ thermonuclear power sources are swapped, as whichever one is Voyager 2 will require a longer-lasting power source to power all instruments for possible visits to Uranus and Neptune following the 1981 Saturn encounter. (A third vehicle, VGR77-1, is an engineering test spare which eventually goes on display at the JPL campus in Pasadena.)

Published On: August 9, 1976

Luna 24The Soviet Union launches the robotic lunar lander and sample return mission, Luna 24. Touching down safely in the Mare Crisium region two weeks after its launch, Luna 24 drills a two-meter core sample of lunar soil for return to Earth in a small reentry capsule. Luna 24 is the final Soviet mission to the moon, and is the last vehicle from Earth to land on the moon in the 20th century. NASA and the Soviet space agency exchange samples of lunar soil later in 1976, since Luna 24 landed in a region unexplored by the Apollo manned landing missions.

Published On: August 9, 1961

Apollo Guidance & Navigation computerThe first government contract is issued in the Apollo lunar landing program, as MIT lands the contract to develop the guidance and navigation computer at the heart of the Apollo vehicles. For its day, MIT designed one of the most robust computers that early ’60s technology could squeeze into such a small space; modern digital watches are far more powerful than that computer. The same computer system will be installed in both the command module and the lunar module.

Absolutely no generative AI was used in the creation of the content on this website.
It’s mostly just some guy named Earl.

EG