Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Gemini

Gemini 3

Gemini 3The first two-man American space crew lifts off in the first manned flight of NASA’s Gemini program. With a larger, more maneuverable spacecraft designed for longer stays in space, Gemini is intended to be a stepping stone on the path to the first lunar landing, allowing astronauts to practice rendezvous, docking, and orbital changes. Aboard the Gemini capsule are Mercury veteran Gus Grissom and rookie John Young; the capsule is unofficially nicknamed “Molly Brown” (a reference to Grissom’s sunken Mercury capsule). The flight lasts barely five hours and includes the first-ever orbital attitude changed made by a manned spacecraft.

Categories
Communications Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight

Intelsat I: The Early Bird

Intelsat I Early Bird satelliteBuilt for COMSAT (Communications Satellite Corporation) by Hughes Aircraft, borrowing heavily from the design of the successful Syncom experimental satellites earlier in the decade, Intelsat I is launched into a geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean, providing telephone, TV, and fax communication via satellite between the United States and Europe. Intelsat I, nicknamed “Early Bird”, doesn’t go operational until COMSAT has completed diagnostics and engineering tests; its first operational use is in June 1965. It will provide satellite transmission of the first live TV coverage of a returning space mission (the splashdown of Gemini 6 in December 1965), and it will be an integral part of the international satellite links necessary for the Our World broadcast in 1967. Despite being retired from regular use in January 1969, it will be reactivated in June 1969 to handle some of the television coverage of the first lunar landing.

Categories
Science & Technology Weather & Climate

Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreakOn the 45th anniversary of a similar severe weather event, a major outbreak of violent tornadoes strikes the northern midwest, causing 271 deaths and over a thousand injuries in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan; 137 of the deaths occur in Indiana alone. With weather radar still in its infant state, a radio station in Cedar Rapids spots the first storm on its own radar, while nearby National Weather Service offices do not have radar yet. The U.S. Weather Bureau’s confusing system of “tornado forecasts” and “tornado alerts” is changed to more clearly delineated “watches” and “warnings” after this event.

Categories
Apollo Crewed Spaceflight Orion Space Shuttle

Vehicle Assembly Building open for business

Vehicle Assembly BuildingNASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building is completed at the spaceport rapidly taking shape on Cape Canaveral ahead of the Apollo lunar missions. Topped off at a total cost of $117,000,000, the VAB is where Saturn V rockets are assembled for the Apollo moonshots, and the huge, eight-acre building will later transition to the assembly of the Space Shuttle launch system elements and the Space Launch System boosters for the 21st century Orion program.

Categories
Television

Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea: The Traitor

Voyage To The Bottom Of The SeaThe 32nd episode of Irwin Allen’s adventure series Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea airs on ABC, starring Richard Basehart and David Hedison. George Sanders guest stars in the first season’s finale, and the final episode to be broadcast in black & white.

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Categories
Luna Uncrewed Spaceflight

Luna 5: negative, it just impacted on the surface

Luna 5Following two years of aborted or otherwise unsuccessful attempts to launch another robotic lunar lander toward the moon, the Soviet Union sends Luna 5 on its way. Intended to be an automated soft-landing mission, Luna 5 encounters major technical problems as it coasts from Earth to the moon. It does eventually reach the moon, but does so out of control and unable to brake for a survivable landing; the plume of material created by the impact of the 3,000-pound Luna 5 is large enough to be spotted from Earth-based telescopes for several minutes.

Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Gemini

Gemini 4

Gemini 4The second manned Gemini flight, Gemini 4, lifts off with Jim McDivitt and Ed White aboard for a four-day mission. Four hours into the flight, White becomes the first American spacewalker, controlling his movement with a handheld device with small jets allowing him to change his own orientation, though he is tethered to the Gemini capsule at all times. This is the first NASA flight overseen from the new Manned Space Center constructed in Houston, Texas, and the first to be broadcast live worldwide.

Categories
Luna Uncrewed Spaceflight

Luna 6

Luna 6It’s not easy to reach the moon. Just a month after the failed flight of Luna 5, the Soviet Union launches the near-identical unmanned spacecraft Luna 6 to the moon. A pre-programmed mid-course correction engine burn, meant to help Luna 6 coast toward a soft landing on the lunar surface, instead overcorrects. The engine fails to acknowledge a command to stop firing, pushing Luna 6 so far off course that it misses the moon by almost 100,000 miles, dumping the vehicle in an orbit around the sun.

Categories
Doctor Who Television

Doctor Who: The Death Of Doctor Who

Doctor WhoThe 76th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part five of the story now collectively known as The Chase, featuring the Doctor’s third struggle against the Daleks. This is the first time that the name “Doctor Who” appears in one of the show’s episode titles, and the last such occurrence until 1970’s Doctor Who and the Silurians.

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Categories
Television

The Stranger: Episode 7

The StrangerThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs the seventh episode of the science fiction series The Stranger, starring Ron Haddrick. This episode marks the beginning of the series’ second season.

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Categories
Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

TIROS-10

TIROSNASA and the United States Weather Bureau launch the tenth and final experimental TIROS weather satellite, TIROS-10. Continuing to test technological upgrades for a fully-functional weather satellite fleet, TIROS-10 also provides additional coverage during hurricane seasons, and remains operational for exactly two years, at which point NASA begins a planned shutdown and phase-out of the experimental TIROS satellites in favor of the Nimbus and ESSA weather satellites.