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Captain Video…and his Video Rangers!
The first-ever American-made science fiction television series, Captain Video And His Video Rangers, debuts on the DuMont Television Network. Originated live from a studio in New York City, the series is aimed squarely at younger viewers, but in years to come the show will enjoy scripts written by such science fiction luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Vance, Robert Sheckley, and James Blish. The series runs five nights a week for six years.
The 39th episode of ABC’s science fiction anthology series, Tales Of Tomorrow, airs on ABC, with each episode’s opening titles proclaiming that the series is produced “in cooperation with the Science-Fiction League of America”, a collective of sci-fi writers including Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon among its members. This episode stars Leslie Nielsen and Brian Keith.
ABC airs the 96th episode of the supernatural anthology series One Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Peter Wyngarde (Department S, Jason King, Flash Gordon) guest stars.
The 32nd episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part two of the story now collectively known as 
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs the eighth episode of the science fiction series The Stranger, starring Ron Haddrick.
In Santa Clara, California, Atari is formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. The company is initially part of Bushnell’s desire to continue competing in the coin-operated game market, where he believes video games can take part of the market share from pinball, but consumer products are not far from Bushnell’s mind either: two weeks before Atari’s incorporation, he attends a Magnavox product fair and gets a first-hand look at the first home video game console.
Soyuz 30 lifts off en route to a brief visit with the crew of space station Salyut 6. This is the second manned Interkosmos mission, with cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk and the first Polish cosmonaut, Mirosław Hermaszewski, aboard. They dock at Salyut 6 after two days in orbit, and spend a total of eight days in space. Though some joint experiments are conducted among the four occupants of the station, the Soyuz 30 crew frequently has to perform experiments in its own Soyuz vehicle to avoid getting in the station crew’s way, and the mission is kept short to free up the second docking port for a Progress unmanned supply vehicle launched four days after Soyuz 30 returns to Earth.
Arista Records releases 
ITV airs the 61st episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Ian Holm guest stars.
Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off for the fourth and final shuttle “test flight” before NASA’s Space Transportation System is declared fully operational. Remaining in orbit for a full week, Commander Ken Mattingly and Pilot Henry Hartsfield deliver the shuttle program’s first payload for the Department of Defense, as well as some of the first student-submitted experiment packages flown in the shuttle program. Both of Columbia’s solid rocket boosters, which are considered a reusable part of the launch vehicle, are lost at sea when their parachutes fail to deploy after separation and the boosters slam into the Atlantic Ocean; neither of the rockets are able to be recovered.
Soyuz T-9 lifts off from the Soviet Union, bringing a new long-term crew to space station Salyut 7. Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov take up residence on Salyut 7 for a 150-day stay, including work aboard the recently-docked Kosmos 1443 temporary space station module. The disastrous failure of the next Soyuz mission to reach orbit means that Lyakhov and Aleksandrov spend their entire stay in orbit with no visits from other crews. They return to Earth on November 23rd.
Activision releases the 
MCA Records releases an album of sougs – and a few of 
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on an almost-ten-day mission to dock with the Russian space station Mir. The first docking proves to be a chore, as the Mir crew has to move one of the station’s modules to a different docking port to accomodate the shuttle. The historic docking – the first joint operation between the two countries since the Apollo-Soyuz mission almost exactly 20 years earlier – results in the largest man-made object in space to date. Aboard Atlantis are Commander Robert Gibson, Pilot Charles Precourt, and mission specialists Ellen Baker, Bonnie Dunbar and Gregory Harbaugh; cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin are transported to Mir aboard Atlantis to become part of Mir Expedition 19, while Expedition 18 crew members Norman Thagard, Vladimir Dezhurov and Gannady Strekalov return to Earth after more than three months aboard Mir.
Cable channel TNT announces that, in addition to ordering two made-for-TV movies continuing the story of syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5, it will be picking up the series for a full fifth season of new episodes. Additionally, work is underway on a sequel/”side story” set in the same universe, provisionally titled The Babylon Project: Crusade, which will also air on TNT. The series’ current cast, already locked down for the TV movies, is presumed to be returning for the fifth season. The first new episode produced will actually be seen in syndication as the final Babylon 5 episode aired on PTEN, since the final episode of the fourth season – always intended to be the very last episode of the series as a whole – will now be held back.
NASA’s NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) unmanned spacecraft closes to within 750 miles of its first target, asteroid 253 Mathilde. Taking over 500 pictures of the asteroid and determining its mass and dimensions (roughly 31 miles in diameter). At the time of this flyby, Mathilde is the largest asteroid to be explored by a spacecraft. Discovered in 1885, Mathilde takes four years to orbit the sun within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NEAR Shoemaker moves on to its next destination, asteroid 433 Eros, which it is expected to reach in 1998.
The seventh episode of Mark Verheiden’s science fiction series Timecop is broadcast on ABC, starring Ted King and Don Stark, loosely based on the 1994 movie of the same name (also co-written by Verheiden). Melora Hardin guest stars. (The series has already been cancelled at this point; ABC is burning off the remaining episodes into off-season time slots.)
NOAA’s GOES-14 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until August 2012, when it will be activated to begin monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac as it closes in on the Gulf Coast, and it will redirected to monitor Hurricane Sandy’s approach and landfall on the east coast of the United States. In 2013 it will be moved to a position near the GOES-EAST geostationary position to cover the Atlantic Ocean and the east coast during one of GOES-13’s many technical outages. It remains in orbit on standby.
The 36th episode of the science fiction series The Expanse, based on the series of novels by James S.A. Corey (a pseudonym for writers Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), is broadcast on cable channel Syfy, closing the third season and ending the show’s run on Syfy. (Later seasons will be produced by, and for, Amazon Prime.)
The CW airs the 38th episode of Batwoman starring Javicia Leslie, Rachel Skarsten, and Meagan Tandy. Wallis Day guest stars in the second season finale.
The CW airs the 90th episode of Legends Of Tomorrow, starring Caity Lotz, Matt Ryan, Jes Macallan, and Tala Ashe. David Ramsey guest stars and directs.
The CW airs the 43rd episode of Superman & Lois, starring Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Michael Bishop, and Alex Garfin. This is the third season finale; the CW announces that a shortened fourth season will be made, but will be the show’s last.