Year: 1989

Categories
Television

Superboy: Meet Mr. Mxyzptlk

  • February 25, 1989

SuperboyThe 16th episode of the syndicated Alexander and Ilya Salkind-produced Superboy series, starring John Haymes Newton and Stacy Haiduk, airs. Michael J. Pollard guest stars in an episode written by comics writer Denny O’Neil (who was at the time the editor of DC Comics’ Batman titles).

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Categories
Television

Freddy’s Nightmares: Love Stinks

  • February 25, 1989

Freddy's NightmaresThe 17th episode of the horror anthology series Freddy’s Nightmares is broadcast in syndication in North America, hosted by Robert Englund in character as Freddy Krueger. Jeffrey Combs (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise) guest stars.

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Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Discovery Space Shuttle

STS-29

  • March 13, 1989

DiscoverySpace Shuttle Discovery lifts off on a nearly-five-day mission to take NASA’s third TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) into orbit, among other smaller experiment packages, including IMAX filming. Aboard Discovery for the first shuttle flight of 1989 are Commander Michael Coats, Pilot John Blaha, and mission specialists James Bagian, James Buchli, and Robert Springer.

Categories
Television

The name of the show is Babylon 5

  • March 26, 1989

Babylon 5After three years of tinkering with the basics of the concept, and spending much of his downtime from the 1988 Writers’ Guild strike refining the idea, writer J. Michael Straczynski completes his first draft script and series bible for a new science fiction series, Babylon 5. In the coming months he will pitch it to several networks, studios, and broadcasters (including Paramount, which passes on it), finally finding a receptive ear in Chris-Craft Television executive Evan Thompson. Thompson, in turn, introduces Straczynski to Warner Bros. TV executive Dick Robertson, with whom Thompson is exploring the possibility of launching a new network.

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Categories
Television

Quantum Leap: Genesis – September 13, 1956

  • March 26, 1989

Quantum LeapNBC premieres the first episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. As a high-concept mid-season replacement, the show’s first season is brief, but quickly finds a cult following.

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Categories
Phobos Uncrewed Spaceflight

Phobos 2 and the curse of Mars

  • March 27, 1989

PhobosThe Soviet Union loses all contact with the unmanned Mars probe Phobos 2 during a close flyby of the inner Martian moon Phobos, where the vehicle had been programmed to deposit a pair of surface landers. Unable to reacquire communications with Phobos 2, Soviet ground controllers later discover a fatal error in the programming of the probe’s on-board computer, leading to a loss of attitude control similar to the incident that doomed Phobos 1 in 1988. Since delivery of the landers never occurs, the mission is deemed a failure.

Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Voyager 2 and the Great Dark Spot

  • April 3, 1989

Neptune's Great Dark SpotImages transmitted to Earth by NASA’s unmanned Voyager 2 spacecraft, from a distance of 129,000,000 miles, reveal a consistent feature in Neptune’s atmosphere, an oval-shaped storm system near the Neptunian equator very similar in size and position to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. This storm, quickly nicknamed the Great Dark Spot, allows Voyager scientists to estimate Neptune’s rotational period much earlier than expected. At the distance between Voyager 2 and Neptune, the smallest features on the planet that can be seen are at least 2,400 miles across, meaning the newly detected storm system is gigantic.