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Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

TIROS-M / ITOS

ESSANASA and ESSA launch the ITOS satellite, also known as TIROS-M, a next-generation weather satellite intended to take over from the constellation of short-lived ESSA weather satellites. With a configuration that is, for the first time, significantly different from the TIROS/ESSA satellites, the TIROS-M design’s shakedown cruise is a short and bumpy one: after system failures force a shutdown of the satellite’s attitude control system, it is shut down in mid-1971.

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Television

The Questor Tapes

The Questor TapesABC premieres the made-for-TV movie The Questor Tapes, starring Robert Foxworth, Mike Farrell, John Vernon and Majel Barrett. Created and co-written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, The Questor Tapes is a promising series pilot, though no series based on it is ordered. (Years later, many observers will notice that Roddenberry transfers Questor’s personality and even some of his backstory to a new Star Trek character named Data.)

More about Gene Roddenberry’s 1970s pilot projects in the LogBook

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Television

The Next Step Beyond: The Love Connection

The Next Step BeyondThe week-long syndication window opens for the fourth episode of The Next Step Beyond, a revival of the 1950s/60s supernatural anthology series One Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Michael Bell (better known for animation voice acting on G.I. Joe and Transformers) guest stars.

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Radio & Audio

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: Episode 10

Hitchhiker's Guide To The GalaxyThe tenth episode of Douglas Adams’ breakthrough radio science fiction comedy series The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is first broadcast on BBC Radio, continuing the second series of the now-hit cult science fiction phenomenon. At this point, the story diverges into material that will not be repeated in later iterations of Hitchhiker’s Guide; Rula Lenska and John Le Mesurier guest star.

More about The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in the LogBook

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Voyager 2 and the clouds of Neptune

NeptuneFor the first time, images transmitted to Earth by NASA’s unmanned Voyager 2 space probe reveal visible cloud features in the atmosphere of Neptune, from a distance of 185,000,000 miles. This is a welcome relief to mission scientists who felt let down by a lamentable lack of any atmospheric detail in the clouds of Uranus, a planet visited by Voyager 2 in 1986. In the months ahead, even more detail will be revealed in Neptune’s upper atmosphere.

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Television

TekWar

TekWarThe TV movie TekWar, based on William Shatner’s cyberpunk novel series, premieres in syndication. The Canadian-made movie, intended to serve as the starting point for a potential series, stars Greg Evigan (My Two Dads), William Shatner (Star Trek), and Torri Higginson (Stargate Atlantis), and features Von Flores (Earth: Final Conflict), Barry Morse (Space: 1999), Sheena Easton, and Maurice Dean Wint (Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future). This movie is part of the Universal Action Pack syndication package (which will become better known for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess).

More about TekWar in theLogBook.com Store

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Television

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Checkpoint

Buffy The Vampire SlayerThe 90th episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on the WB network. James Marsters, Anthony Stewart Head, and Alyson Hannigan also star. Clare Kramer guest stars.

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Cassini / Huygens Uncrewed Spaceflight

Hello, Himalia!

HimaliaNASA releases a photo taken by the Cassini space probe as it passed by Jupiter and its complex system of satellites in December 2000, showing the first-ever view of the tiny moon Himalia, taken from a distance of 2.7 million miles. Non-spherical in shape, but estimated to be roughly 100 miles across its widest face, Himalia is believed to be an asteroid permanently captured into an inclined orbit of Jupiter. It was discovered in 1904 from Earth-based telescopes. The New Horizons space probe will also attempt to image Himalia in 2007. The sixth largest satellite of Jupiter, Himalia is the first of the planet’s outer satellites beyond the orbit of Callisto to be photographed by a passing spacecraft.

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Deaths Doctor Who Matters of Life & Death Star Trek Television

Barrie Ingham, actor, dies

Barrie Ingham with Dorn, Stewart, RoddenberryActor Barrie Ingham, one of the few actors to have played speaking parts in both the Doctor Who and Star Trek franchises, dies at the age of 82. Having appeared alongside William Hartnell in the 1965 Doctor Who story The Myth Makers, Mr. Ingham went on to play a more visible role as Alydon with Peter Cushing in the movie Dr. Who And The Daleks. He also appeared in the 1989 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Up The Long Ladder as the leader of a throwback space colony.