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Challenger Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

STS-61A

Space ShuttleSpace Shuttle Challenger lifts off on a one-week mission to carry the Spacelab module and an all-German crew to orbit. The “Spacelab D1” mission is flown by Commander Henry Hartsfield, Pilot Steven Nagel, mission specialists James Buchli, Guion Bluford, and Bonnie Dunbar, and payload specialists Reinhard Furrer, Ernst Messerschmid and Wubbo J. Ockels.

This is the final successful launch of Challenger.

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Television

Misfits Of Science: Lost Link

Misfits Of ScienceThe fourth episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Jesse Dizon (Operation Petticoat) and Branscombe Richmond (Renegade) guest star.

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Television

Amazing Stories: The Mission

Amazing StoriesThe fifth episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC; this is the second and final episode directed by Spielberg himself. Kevin Costner (Field Of Dreams), Kiefer Sutherland (24), Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace) and Casey Siemaszko (Back To The Future) star in an episode scored by John Williams (Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Superman). Spielberg is nominated for an Emmy for best direction, but does not win; the episode’s cinematographer (John McPherson) does win an Emmy. Most Amazing Stories episodes are a half-hour long, but this one runs a full hour.

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Books

The Planets

The PlanetsThe first edition of the non-fiction-with-science-fiction-short-stories anthology The Planets is published by Bantam Books, edited by Byron Preiss. Contributors include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Harry Harrison, Ray Bradbury, Roger Zelazny, JPL scientist Dale Cruikshank, Frank Herbert, illustrator Ralph McQuarrie, and many more. Each body in the solar system is described in a factual essay, and then features in a short story.

More on Space non-fiction in Book Reviews

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 7

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the seventh episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Adrienne Barbeau and Danny Kaye star in an episode comprised of two short stories, including Harlan Ellison’s adaptation of his own short story, Paladin Of The Lost Hour.

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Television

Misfits Of Science: Sort Of Looking For Gina

Misfits Of ScienceThe fifth episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Rhonda Aldrich (Sequestered, Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest stars.

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Buran Crewed Spaceflight

Buran Approach & Landing Test 1

BuranWith its own jet engines freeing it from the need for a carrier aircraft, the Buran Analogue test vehicle – the Soviet equivalent of Space Shuttle Enterprise – makes its first approach and landing test, cutting off its jet engines at a predetermined altitude and gliding to an airstrip for a landing. The Buran Analogue will ultimately make more test flights than the Enterprise, continuing to conduct glider landings through 1988.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 8

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the eighth episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. James Coco, Piper Laurie, and Morgan Freeman star in an episode comprised of three short stories, including an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s short story, The Burning Man.

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Crewed Spaceflight Enterprise Space Shuttle

Enterprise retired

EnterpriseThe Space Shuttle Enterprise arrives to begin its new life as a star exhibit at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. Having used the Enterprise as a test shuttle for landings and engineering fit checks, and having dispatched it on a world tour of air shows and other public appearances, NASA donates Enterprise to the Smithsonian, as any plans to refit it into a spaceworthy orbiter have been nixed by this point.

Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

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Computers

Windows

Windows 1.0Microsoft introduces a graphical user interface for the IBM PC compatible computers, Windows 1.0. Essentially a GUI shell for Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system, Windows arrives over two years after it was initially announced in 1983. To avoid legal entanglements with Apple (which has already launched a more visually-pleasing user interface with its Macintosh computers), Microsoft deliberately omits such now common features as overlapping or resizeable windows. Due to the amount of RAM in most users’ PCs, Windows’ multitasking ability is extremely limited.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 9

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the ninth episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Helen Mirren and Brian Tochi (Space Academy) star in an episode comprised of two short stories, including a remake of an episode from the original Twilight Zone.

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Star Wars Television

Ewoks: The Battle For Endor

Ewoks: The Battle For EndorABC airs the Lucasfilm TV movie Ewoks: The Battle For Endor, starring Wilford Brimley, Warwick Davis, and Aubree Miller. Written and directed by the Wheat Brothers (The Fly II, Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick), the movie quickly dispenses with all but one of the human family around which the first Ewok TV movie centered and then embarks on an adventure that’s more fantasy than science fiction.

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Atlantis Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

STS-61B

Space ShuttleSpace Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on a seven-day mission of crucial importance to plans for a future space station. In addition to launching three satellites (Mexico’s MORELOS-B, RCA’s SATCOM KU-2 and AUSSAT-2 for Australia), two spacewalks in excess of five hours each are conducted, each one testing a different method of erecting large truss structures in space. Atlantis’ crew for this mission consists of Commander Brewster Shaw, Pilot Bryan O’Connor, mission specialists Mary Cleave, Sherwood Spring, Jerry Ross and payload specialists Rodolfo Neri Vela and Charles Walker.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 10

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the tenth episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Jonathan Ward (Mac And Me) and Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Bettlejuice) star in an episode comprised of three short stories, including one directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins).

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Television

Misfits Of Science: Steer Crazy

Misfits Of ScienceThe seventh episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian) and Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years, From The Earth To The Moon) guest star.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 11

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the 11th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Charles Martin Smith and Peter Riegert star in an episode comprised of two short stories, including an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s short story One Life, Furnished In Early Poverty.

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Television

Misfits Of Science: Fumble On The One

Misfits Of ScienceThe eighth episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Sid Haig (Jason Of Star Command) and Greta Blackburn (V) guest star.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 12

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the 12th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Gary Cole (Crusade), Sherman Hemsley (The Jeffersons), and Ron Glass (Firefly, Barney Miller) star in an episode comprised of two short stories, including an adaptation of Joe Haldeman’s short story I Of Newton.

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Television

Misfits Of Science: Twin Engines

Misfits Of ScienceThe ninth episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Joel Polis (The Thing) guest stars. Story credit (but not script credit) for this episode is given to 28-year-old Tim Kring, the future creature of the 21st century superhero series Heroes.

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Franchises Television Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone: Episode 13

The Twilight ZoneCBS airs the 13th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Pam Dawber (Mork & Mindy), Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and Donald Moffat (Logan’s Run) star in an episode comprised of three short stories, including another remake of an episode from the classic Twilight Zone series and an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s short story The Star.

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Pioneer Uncrewed Spaceflight

Pioneer Venus captures Halley’s Comet

Halley's CometHaving already conducted measuresment of Comets Encke and Giacobini-Zinner, the still-functioning Pioneer Venus Orbiter, launched in 1978, becomes the centerpiece of the American effort to gather close-up data on Halley’s Comet. Imaging the comet in ultraviolet light, Pioneer Venus captures Halley from a unique vantage point: both the comet and the planet being orbited by Pioneer are on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, when Halley is at its closest approach to the sun – an event that no other spacecraft is in a position to witness. The Pioneer Venus data will become the most critical data gathered on Halley by an American spacecraft after a planned March 1986 Space Shuttle mission to image the comet from Earth orbit is scrapped in the wake of the Challenger disaster in January.