NASA launches Pioneer 2, a near-identical twin to the failed lunar probe Pioneer 1 it launched a month earlier. Again, technical errors prevent the probe from entering lunar orbit or, for that matter, even reaching the moon – Pioneer 2 limps into a looping arc, barely a thousand miles from Earth, and returns home to burn up in the atmosphere.
The ninth episode of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, based on Wells’ story, airs on ITV; the series will be shown later in the U.S. on CBS. Honor Blackman (The Avengers) guest stars.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
The tenth episode of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, based on Wells’ story, airs on ITV; the series will be shown later in the U.S. on CBS. Lisa Daniely and Deborah Watling (Doctor Who) star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
The 11th episode of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, based on Wells’ story, airs on ITV; the series will be shown later in the U.S. on CBS. Lisa Daniely and Deborah Watling (Doctor Who) star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
The 12th episode of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, based on Wells’ story, airs on ITV; the series will be shown later in the U.S. on CBS. Lisa Daniely stars.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
After months of lobbying the U.S. Air Force and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) for help in funding a large-aperture radar/radio telescope dish for studies of Earth’s ionosphere and the space that lies beyond, Cornell University’s Bill Gordon publishes a report in the journal of the School of Electrical Engineering. Gordon’s report, setting out the basic parameters for the project, includes a reflector dish diameter of one thousand feet – a daunting prospect from a structural engineering perspective. Sites in Texas and upstate New York are considered before a natural limestone “bowl” south of the city of Arecibo, Puerto Rico emerges as a promising candidate site.
NASA launches the Pioneer 3 space probe, intended – like its predecessors – to visit the vicinity of the moon. Designed to activate a television camera to get the first look at the moon’s far side, Pioneer 3 never reaches its target, only covering a third of the distance between Earth and the moon before it loops back toward Earth and burns up in the atmosphere a day later. Its near-identical twin, Pioneer 4, will be launched in 1959.
The 13th episode of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, based on Wells’ story, airs on ITV; the series will be shown later in the U.S. on CBS. Lisa Daniely and Deborah Watling (Doctor Who) star; Patrick Troughton (Doctor Who) guest stars in the first season finale.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.
With engineers and ground controllers working under absolute secrecy, the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency launches the Atlas rocket-based SCORE satellite, an experimental communications satellite capable of recording four-minute audio messages from the ground for later playback to another part of the world. Though the first communication transmitted to Earth by SCORE is a message from President Eisenhower wishing listeners a peaceful Christmas, there’s little doubt that it’s a thinly-veiled military hardware demonstration. SCORE remains in orbit for only a few weeks before burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.
