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Delia Derbyshire, music pioneer, dies
British composer and musician Delia Derbyshire, probably best known for the unforgettably haunting arrangement of Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme music which graced the show from 1963 to 1980, dies at the age of 64. The first female composer to work in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Ms. Derbyshire also contributed a great deal of music both otherworldly and otherwise to the BBC’s library over the years, and remained an active participant up until her death.
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Pay cable channel Showtime airs the 89th episode of Stargate SG-1. Tony Amendola and Peter Williams guest star.
Sci-Fi Channel airs the 139th episode of The Outer Limits. Irene Bedard (Pocahontas) and Greg Evigan (TekWar, B.J. And The Bear) guest star.
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Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on the 105th shuttle flight, a 13-day flight to resupply and install new hardware on the International Space Station. The station gains a new airlock and an equipment pallet – formerly part of the Spacelab module – which is attached to the station’s exterior. Aboard Atlantis for her 24th flight are Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Charles Hobaugh, and mission specialists Michael Gernhardt, James Reilly and Janet Kavandi.
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NOAA’s GOES-12 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until 2003, when it will be moved to the GOES-EAST position to replace GOES-8, which is nearly out of fuel. Though GOES-11 has been in orbit longer than GOES-12, this satellite is activated first to use a solar imaging instrument (which will fail in 2006). Once in its active position, GOES-12 suffers from chronic thruster problems due to errors made during wiring of its primary and backup maneuvering thrusters; one outage will prove to be severe enough that the still-active GOES-10 must cover GOES-EAST coverage. In 2008, another thruster glitch will cause GOES-12 to temporarily lose all attitude control. In 2010, GOES-13 will replace GOES-12 in the GOES-EAST orbit thanks to the continued attitude control issues; GOES-12 remains in orbit as a backup.
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Running Press publishes John Sellers’ non-fictional recap of the video game industry’s early landmark titles, “
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NASA and JPL launch the unmanned space probe Genesis to collect samples of the solar wind by exposing various materials from Earth to the solar wind and returning those materials to Earth – the first space mission to return samples from space since the Apollo moon missions – so the properties of the exposed samples can be compared to those of similar samples still on Earth. After nearly three years in deep space, Genesis will send a capsule loaded with these samples back to Earth, though its landing won’t exactly go as planned.
Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off on the 106th shuttle flight, a mission to exchange crews aboard the International Space Station. The shuttle’s cargo bay carries a logistics module containing more equipment for the ISS laboratory module, as well as storage racks to be installed elsewhere in the station. Aboard Discovery for her 30th flight are Commander Scott Horowitz, Pilot Frederick Sturckow, missions specialists Daniel Barry and Patrick Forrester, and ISS Expedition 3 crewmembers Frank Culbertson, Mikhail Turin and Vladimir Dezhurov, who remain aboard the station. Returning to Earth via Discovery are ISS Expedition 2 crewmembers Yury Usachev, James Voss and Susan Helms.
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Citing too many cooks in the kitchen, Majel Barrett Roddenberry bails out as executive producer of both Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda, two weekly syndicated shows spawned by unfinished scripts and outlines written by her late husband, Gene Roddenberry. Barrett joins many fans in voicing disapproval with the new direction of E:FC’s upcoming fifth season (which seems to be dispensing with a majority of series continuity). Her recurring character on E:FC, Dr. Belman, will make no further appearances.
It turns out that the “final season” of Stargate SG-1 isn’t quite so final. The Sci-Fi Channel picks the series up from Showtime for a new season of 22 episodes, set to begin filming in January 2002. Sci-Fi also announces plans to begin airing daily reruns of SG-1 starting in 2002, possibly to coincide with the broadcast of the new episodes. The deal to salvage the show is intended to give it one final season that it would have been denied by Showtime, though the eventual ratings will change the minds of Sci-Fi’s management.
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