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Apollo Crewed Spaceflight

Apollo 10

Apollo 10Apollo 10 lifts off for a dress rehearsal over the moon. Thomas Stafford, Gene Cernan and John Young fly a complete Apollo stack – both the command/service module and the lunar model – to the moon, conducting practice maneuvers in lunar orbit. Over eight days, the Apollo 10 crew does everything but land on the moon. With the mission requirements fulfilled, NASA announces that the next Apollo mission will attempt an actual landing.

This mission is dramatized in the Spider episode of HBO’s 1998 series From The Earth To The Moon.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Mariner Jupiter/Saturn ’77

VoyagerHaving spent six years wrangling with various mission profiles for a “Grand Tour” of the outer solar system, made possible by a favorable planetary alignment occurring only once every 175 years, NASA finally authorizes a very stripped-down version of its original ambitious Grand Tour plans. The Mariner Jupiter/Saturn ’77 mission will consist of two twin unmanned spacecraft to be launched in 1977, each on a course to explore Jupiter, and then to use Jupiter’s gravity to deflect them to Saturn. These spacecraft will be renamed Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 just a few months before lifting off.

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Apollo-Soyuz Crewed Spaceflight Salyut Space Shuttle

Space Cooperation Agreement renewed

Apollo-SoyuzWith the 1972 agreement having resulted in the successful Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the United States and the Soviet Union formally renew the Space Cooperation Agreement. As an immediate goal to build on Apollo-Soyuz, both countries hold tentative discussions about docking the American Space Shuttle (which, it is still assumed, will be in space before the 1970s are out) and a Soviet Salyut space station. Though the shuttle’s first flight is still being delayed, the biggest hurdle will prove to be international relations, specifically a renewed chilling of the Cold War thanks to the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Categories
Geosciences Science & Technology

Mt. St. Helens explodes

Mt. St. HelensFolllowing a lull in its recent frequent earthquake and minor volcanic activity, the summit of Mt. St. Helens in Washington disappears in a massive landslide, releasing a powerful (300mph) lateral explosion that flattens nearby forest land ahead of a devastating release of debris and snowmelt mud known as a lahar. Within an hour, with the summit crater exposed, the remaining magma stored under Mt. St. Helens surges upward, resulting in a massive eruption from the summit, lasting nine hours and wiping out hundreds of square miles of forest and killing dozens of people, including geologists who had been on station to monitor the volcano’s activity. Following the eruption, Mt. St. Helens is over 1,000 feet shorter, its peak replaced by a mile-wide crater. This is the first significant volcanic eruption on the American mainland since 1915.

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Television

The Flash: Trial Of The Trickster

The FlashThe 22nd episode of the superhero series The Flash, based on the DC Comics character, airs on CBS, starring John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays. Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series) guest stars in what is intended to merely be a lead-in to a second season, though CBS does not pick The Flash up for a second year, making this the final episode. John Wesley Shipp will return as both this series’ version of the Flash and as Barry Allen’s father in the much longer-lived 21st century series based on the character.

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Crewed Spaceflight Mir Soyuz

Soyuz TM-12: the first British astronaut

Soyuz TM-12Helen Sharman becomes the first British national in space, flying aboard Soyuz TM-12 to the Soviet space station Mir. Making her flight in a seat bought and paid for by a consortium of British commercial interests, Sharman tags along with cosmonauts Anatoly Artsebarsky and Sergei Krikalev, and she spends just a week in orbit before returning with Soyuz TM-13 cosmonaut Toktar Aubakirov. Artsebarsky and Krikalev remain aboard Mir for what is initially planned to be a five-month stay, though a shake-up in the flight schedule forces mission planners to ask Krikalev to stay aboard Mir even after Artsebarsky returns to Earth, resulting in Krikalev remaining on Mir for 10 months, not returning home until 1992 – at which point the Soviet Union will have ceased to exist.

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Television X-Files

The X-Files: Gethsemane

The X-FilesThe 97th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. John Finn guest stars in the fourth season finale.

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Television

Team Knight Rider: Legion Of Doom

Team Knight RiderThe 22nd and final episode of the sequel series Team Knight Rider airs in syndication, starring Brixton Karnes, Christine Steel, Duane Davis, and Nick Wechsler. David McCallum (The Man From UNCLE, The Invisible Man, Sapphire & Steel) guest stars in what was intended to be a season finale cliffhanging into a second season, with the return of Michael Knight from the original Knight Rider as a major plot point. That character’s face is not seen, as David Hasselhoff – still starring in Baywatch – has not been approached to reprise the role.

More about Knight Rider in theLogBook.com Store
Team Knight Rider now streaming on Amazon Prime

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Television

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Graduation Day Part 1

Buffy The Vampire SlayerThe 54th episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on the WB network. Anthony Stewart Head, David Boreanaz, and Alyson Hannigan also star. Alexis Denisof (Angel), Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse), and Armin Shimerman (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) guest star.

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Television

Total Recall 2070: Eye Witness

Total Recall 2070Canadian broadcaster CHCH-TV airs the 19th episode of Art Monterastelli’s sci-fi series Total Recall 2070, starring Michael Easton and Cynthia Preston, very loosely based on the 1990 film Total Recall. The series will air on the American pay cable channel Showtime later in the year. Art Hindle (E.N.G.), Jayne Heitmeyer (Earth: Final Conflict), and Nigel Bennett (Forever Knight, Lexx) guest star.

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