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Television

Pathfinders To Venus: The Venus People

Pathfinders To VenusBritish broadcaster ABC airs the fifth episode of Pathfinders To Venus, a follow-up series to Pathfinders In Mars, produced by future Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman. George Colouris and Gerald Flood (City Beneath The Sea) star; the script is written by Malcolm Hulke (Doctor Who) and Eric Paice (Star Maidens). Though the original master tape of this episode was later wiped for reuse, film recordings of all eight episodes will be recovered and released on DVD in the 21st century.

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Luna Uncrewed Spaceflight

Luna 4 loses the landing

Luna 4An unmanned Soviet lunar lander, Luna 4, is launched from the USSR’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. Unlike Luna 2, which intentionally crashed into the moon with no attempt to slow its approach, Luna 4 is the first atempt at a vehicle intended to survive its descent to the lunar surface and make observations from the ground. A failed course correction engine burn leaves the 3,000-pound vehicle in a wide, looping orbit around the Earth, unable to reach the moon at all. The Soviet Union, after several more attempts, will eventually achieve the first unmanned soft landing on the surface of the moon three years later.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Zond

Zond 1

Zond 1The Soviet Union launches the space probe Zond 1 toward Venus, a more sophisticated version of the Venera 1 vehicle sent to that planet in 1961. Thanks to an electrical short within the Zond space probe, ground controllers lose all contact a month after it leaves Earth; by the time it swings past Venus at over 60,000 miles months later, Zond 1 has shut down completely.

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Television

It’s About Time: The Stowaway

It's About TimeThe 26th episode of the time travel sitcom It’s About Time, created by Sherwood Schwarz (I Dream Of Jeannie) and starring Frank Aletter, Jack Mullaney, and Imogene Coca, is broadcast on CBS. This episode, the final one shown, is left over from the original formulation of the series premise, in which the astronauts were stranded in the stone age.

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Movies

2001: a space odyssey

HAL 9000The product of a four-year collaboration between visionary SF writer Arthur C. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick, MGM’s 2001: a space odyssey premieres, delighting fans of hard SF and bewildering audiences and critics. It is released alongside Clarke’s novel of the same story, which both clarifies some of the more inscrutible story points (such as the reason for the behavior of HAL, the ship’s computer) and confuses others (the book depicts a mission to Saturn; the movie depicts a mission to Jupiter). Many critics and science fiction writers regard the movie as an instant classic of the genre, one which continues to be hugely influential in the years and decades to come.

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Television

Project UFO Sighting 4006: The Nevada Desert Incident

Project UFOThe sixth episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star. Scott Hylands (Night Heat, V) and Brian Tochi (Space Academy) guest star.

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Television

Salvage 1: Operation Breakout

Salvage 1The ninth episode of the series Salvage 1 airs on ABC, starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins, and Trish Stewart. Richard Jaeckel (Spenser For Hire) and Moses Gunn (Shaft, Father Murphy) guest star.

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Computers

Microsoft Z80 Softcard

Microsoft Z80 SoftcardMicrosoft enters the computer hardware business with a Z80 processor card for the Apple II computer. This peripheral allows the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system and Microsoft BASIC (the Apple II is well on its way to dominating the home computer market at this point). Selling it for nearly $350 is responsible for bringing in the bulk of Microsoft’s revenue between now and the introduction of Microsoft DOS for the IBM PC.

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Television

The Outer Limits: Blank Slate

The Outer LimitsShowtime airs the 95th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. Dale Midkiff (Time Trax) guest stars in an episode directed by Lou Diamond Phillips.

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Crewed Spaceflight International Space Station Soyuz

Soyuz TMA-18

Soyuz TMA-18Part of the 23rd full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-18. Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Korniyenko and Tracy Caldwell Dyson take up residence on the ISS for 164 days, becoming part of the Expedition 23/24 crews. All three return to Earth in September 2010 aboard the same vehicle.

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Arrowverse (DC) Television

Arrow: Deathstroke

ArrowThe 41st episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Summer Glau (Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and Caity Lotz (Mad Men, Legends Of Tomorrow) guest star.

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Crewed Spaceflight New Shepard

Blue Origin NS-4

Blue Origin NS-4Commercial spaceflight operator Blue Origin, owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, launches its fourth New Shepard flight. The uncrewed (but human-rated) capsule and its single-stage suborbital booster come in for soft landings near Blue Origin’s Texas launch facility. This is the third flight for the second New Shepard reusable capsule, as well as the third flight for the second New Shepard reusable booster; both will be flown again later in 2016.