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Crewed Spaceflight International Space Station Soyuz

Soyuz TMA-10 / ISS Expedition 15

Soyuz TMA-10The fifteenth full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-10. Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchikhin take up residence on the ISS for 196 days. Arriving with them on the ISS for an 11-day stay is space tourist Charles Simonyi, a Microsoft software engineer (whose successes included such widely-used software as Microsoft Word and Excel), who returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-9 with the Expedition 14 crew. Like other “space tourists” before him, he has paid for his own Soyuz seat and mission training. When Kotov and Yurchikhin return in October 2007, the Soyuz suffers a dangerous malfunction, failing to jettison its service module; the result is an off-balance spacecraft that re-enters the atmosphere nose-first, exposing under-insulated portions of the vehicle to the heat of re-entry. The crew manages a survivable landing, but news of the incident is kept quiet by the Russian space program until a similar mishap occurs aboard the next Soyuz flight.

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Crewed Spaceflight Deaths Matters of Life & Death Mercury

Wally Schirra, Mercury astronaut, dies

Wally SchirraAstronaut Wally Schirra, one of the seven original Mercury astronauts, and the only astronaut to lift off aboard Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, dies at the age of 84. Selected as one of the first “class” of American astronauts, Schirra was the fifth American to fly in space, making six orbits of the Earth in 1962. He commanded Gemini 6, and was the commander of Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, which tested the capabilities of the redesigned Apollo command/service module in Earth orbit. In 1969, he retired from NASA and immediately landed a new gig, sitting aside TV news legend Walter Cronkite for coverage of the missions to the moon, as well as continuing to offer insider commentary on space coverage at CBS through 1975. He was awarded numerous medals by both NASA and the United States Navy, among countless other honors.

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Television

Lost: Through The Looking Glass

LostABC airs the 69th episode of the J.J. Abrams-produced series Lost, ending the show’s third season. Mira Furlan (Babylon 5), Andrew Divoff, and Nestor Carbonell guest star in a season finale that turns the series’ long-established format on its ear by introducing flash-forwards to a time when the characters have already escaped the island.

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Atlantis Crewed Spaceflight International Space Station Space Shuttle

STS-117

Space ShuttleSpace Shuttle Atlantis lifts off the 118th shuttle flight, on a two-week mission to resupply and continue assembly of the International Space Station. Two major structural trusses and two large solar power arrays are delivered and installed, and a damaged array is removed. Aboard Atlantis for her 28th flight are Commander Rick Sturckow, Pilot Lee Archambault, and mission specialists Patrick Forrester, Danny Olivas, Clayton Anderson, Jim Reilly and Steven Swanson. Anderson remains on the station, joining the crew of ISS Expedition 15.

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Doctor Who Television

Doctor Who: Blink

Doctor WhoThe 736th episode of Doctor Who (the 38th since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1. Though it is this season’s “Doctor lite” story – featuring minimal appearances from David Tennant and Freema Agyeman – Blink proves to be hugely popular, thanks in no small part to the most popular enemy that the new series has produced to date, the Weeping Angels, making their first appearance here. Blink goes on to win a Hugo Award.

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Doctor Who Television

Doctor Who: The Sound Of Drums

Doctor WhoThe 738th episode of Doctor Who (the 40th since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1. Guest starring John Barrowman and John Simm (Life On Mars), this is the second part of a three-part season finale reintroducing the Master, the Doctor’s rival Time Lord from the classic series. This episode offers the first glimpse of the Time Lords – in full classic series regalia – since the beginning of the new Doctor Who series.

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Doctor Who Television

Doctor Who: Last Of The Time Lords

Doctor WhoThe 739th episode of Doctor Who (the 41st since the series’ revival) airs on BBC1. Guest starring John Barrowman and John Simm (Life On Mars), this is the final part of a three-part season finale reintroducing the Master, the Doctor’s rival Time Lord from the classic series. Freema Agyeman departs the TARDIS as Martha in this episode, returning as a recurring character the following season.

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Deaths Matters of Life & Death

Peter Tuddenham, Blake’s 7 actor, dies

Peter TuddenhamActor Peter Tuddenham, perhaps not been a familiar face to fans of British SF, but certainly a familiar voice, dies at the age of 88. After playing voice-over-only characters in a few episodes of Doctor Who, he became a series regular on the cult favorite series Blake’s 7, providing the voice of the Liberator’s on-board computer Zen and later the feisty supercomputer Orac throughout the series. (When the Liberator was destroyed at the end of the show’s third season, he voiced its replacement, the obsequious Slave, aboard the crew’s new ship.) He did play numerous characters in person in guest appearances on many shows, and also served as a dialect coach for other actors throughout much of his career.