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Uncrewed Spaceflight Venera

Venera 2

Venera 2The Soviet Venera 2 space probe is launched toward Venus, and for the first time cameras are placed aboard a vehicle bound for that planet. Venera 2 will eventually pass within 14,000 miles of its target, but electrical failures silence the space probe and its instruments long before the flyby.

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Books

Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual

cover artBallantine Books releases the Star Trek book “Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual”, written and illustrated by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt. The book ushers in an obsession with science fiction blueprints and design manuals, both Star Trek and otherwise, and will be reprinted and referred to (including on the Enterprise’s own displays in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture) for decades to come.

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Television

Space: 1999 finale

Space: 1999Despite appearing to be the right show in the right place at the right time, Space: 1999 ends its two-season run with an episode called The Dorcons, guest starring ex-Doctor Who Patrick Troughton. Though it would seem to be the prime contender to satisfy Star Wars-generated sci-fi mania on the small screen, the show’s run has already ended thanks to a combination of cast members’ demands for raises and creative control, and the slowly unraveling marriage of producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

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Music

Beginning Of The Enz

Split EnzMushroom Records releases the Split Enz compilation album, Beginning Of The Enz. Rather than a straightforward “greatest hits” album, this LP gathers nearly all of the band’s early singles and B-sides recorded and released in the early ’70s prior to their first album. At the same time this album hits stores, Split Enz is back in the recording studio working on their next album, True Colours.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Voyager 1 at Saturn

SaturnThanks to a significant gravity assist from Jupiter, Voyager 1 arrives at Saturn only a year behind Pioneer 11, imaging the planet, its rings and its moons in far greater detail. Its planned trajectory takes Voyager 1 close to the cloud-shrouded moon Titan, whose surface scientists hope to be able to see for the first time, but the close flyby yields only the featureless clouds, much to the mission planners’ disappointment. This is Voyager 1’s final planetary stop, with a proposed visit to Pluto having fallen by the wayside early in mission planning in favor of the close-up look at Titan.

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Columbia Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

STS-2: Columbia rides again

ColumbiaFor the first time in history, a space vehicle returns to space for a second complete mission. Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off on its second test flight, with another two-man crew consisting of Joe Engle and Richard Truly, the first all-rookie American space crew since the last Skylab flight. Refinements to various systems are to be tested on this mission, as well as the first use of the remote manipulator arm, upon which nearly all claims of the shuttle’s ability to deploy, retrieve and repair satellites rest.

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Music

Split Enz displays Conflicting Emotions

Split EnzThe eighth album from Split Enz, Conflicting Emotions, is released. Despite the catchy single “Strait Old Line”, the album doesn’t sell as well is the group’s previous three albums (perhaps a side-effect of lower exposure due to the previous album’s lead single being artificially strangled by radio programmers). This is the last album to feature founding member Tim Finn; his younger brother Neil elects to keep the band together to continue recording.

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Atlantis Crewed Spaceflight Mir Space Shuttle

STS-74: Atlantis returns to Mir

Space ShuttleNASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on the 73rd shuttle flight, an eight-day mission to dock with Russian space station Mir. Due to the docking difficulties of the first flight – which required Mir crew members to move one of their station’s modules out of the shuttle’s way temporarily – Atlantis carries a Russian-made docking adapter which adds a tunnel to one of Mir’s docking ports, allowing the shuttle to join up with the station without further module relocation. Atlantis carries Commander Kenneth Cameron, Pilot James Halsell, and mission specialists Jerry Ross, William McArthur and Chris Hadfield to visit Mir; there is no crew exchange on this flight.