Categories
Mariner Uncrewed Spaceflight

Mariner 6 launched

Mariner 6NASA and JPL launch the unmanned Mariner 6 space probe on a mission to Mars, where it will be joined by its yet-to-be-launched identical twin, Mariner 7. Mariner 6 will take five months to reach the red planet, with its slightly faster sister ship mere days behind it, and will fly past Mars twice as close as the planet’s previous unmanned visitors.

Categories
Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

ESSA-9

ESSAThe recently-rechristened Environmental Sciences Service Administration launches, with the help of NASA, ESSA-9, the latest in a constellation of weather satellites. ESSA-9 is the last weather satellite to carry the ESSA designation, as the government reorganizes ESSA into a new agency, NOAA, the following year. ESSA-9 remains in service until 1972.

Categories
Apollo Crewed Spaceflight

Apollo 9

Apollo 9Apollo 9 lifts off on a ten-day mission to test the first lunar lander, but only in Earth orbit. Jim McDivitt and Rusty Schweickart put the lunar module, nicknamed Spider, through its paces, while David Scott mans the command module Gumdrop. This is the first flight of the completely non-aerodynamic lunar module, and various docking maneuvers and spacewalk scenarios are practiced. The crew returns to Earth in the Apollo command module, while Spider is left in a low orbit which decays two weeks later, allowing it to disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere.

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

Categories
Star Trek Television

Star Trek: from cancellation to syndication

Star TrekHaving completed its purchase of Desilu Studios, Paramount runs the first print advertisement in Vol. 76, Issue 12 of Broadcasting Magazine, offering Star Trek reruns in syndication. Even though the last episode has yet to air on NBC, it is perhaps telling that the ad promises a set number of “79 episodes of constant quality, now being seen in over 65 countries around the world” – confirmation that there will be no further episodes beyond the current season.

More about Star Trek in the LogBook

Categories
Mariner Uncrewed Spaceflight

Mariner 7 launched

Mariner 7NASA and JPL launch the unmanned Mariner 7 space probe on a mission to Mars, where it will be joined by its recently-launched identical twin, Mariner 6. Mariner 7 will take five months to reach the red planet, but on a slightly faster trajectory it will arrive just days behind Mariner 6. Both will fly past Mars twice as close as the planet’s previous unmanned visitors.

Categories
Television

Out Of The Unknown: Get Off My Cloud

Out Of The UnknownBBC2 airs the 38th episode of science fiction anthology series Out Of The Unknown. Adapted by David Climie from a story by Peter Phillips, the story stars Peter Barkworth and features an appearance by the Daleks (complete with David Graham providing their voices) from the series’ BBC stablemate, Doctor Who. Directed by Peter Cregeen, a future BBC Head of Series who would become infamous for cancelling Doctor Who after its 1989 season, this episode closes the third season, but no longer exists in the BBC’s archives.

More about Out Of The Unknown in the LogBook
Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

Categories
Computers

Happy birthday, Internet!

Command?This is the observed day of the internet’s birth, actually marking the day that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency chose the contractor to build the initial nodes and connections of the ARPAnet. Though the internet is ubiquitous from a 21st century perspective, its origins lie in a disquieting Cold-War-era concept of a distributed computer communications network whose operations could continue even if multiple nodes of the network have been disrupted or destroyed. ARPAnet, the forerunner to the modern internet, will become operational on an experimental basis later in 1969.

Categories
Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

Nimbus 3

NimbusNASA launches the Nimbus 3 satellite, designed to observe weather patterns from orbit and test new weather and climate detection technologies. Nimbus 3 is the first Earth-orbiting spacecraft to test the SNAP-19 radioisotope thermoelectric generator system; devices similar to the SNAP-19 will become the primary power source for later deep space and outer solar system interplanetary missions. Nimbus 3 loses attitude control in 1970, but is kept online for engineering information-gathering purposes until 1972.