Author: theLogBook.com

Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.

Soyuz T-5

Soyuz T-5Soyuz T-5 lifts off from the Soviet Union, carrying its crew of two to the new Salyut 7 space station for a long-term stay. Cosmonauts Anatoli Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev become Salyut 7’s first occupants, remaining aboard the station for a record-setting 211 days (almost seven months), not returning until December 1982. During that time, the two cosmonauts host two other visiting crews and launch a small amateur radio communications satellite by ejecting it from a small airlock.

Pepper II

Pepper IIExidy’s utterly bizarre coin-op video game Pepper II arrives in arcades, and players are given the task of guiding an angelic being on his mission to zip up a maze made of zippers while pursued by little devils. While trying to figure out if any of it makes sense, the industry spends far too much time coining phrases like “wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper II?” Read more

BOR4: the mini-shuttle that almost was

BOR4The Soviet Union launches a scaled-down test model of a compact space shuttle design into orbit, part of an ultimately abandoned study of a vehicle design called Spiral. The BOR4 structural test article is photographed being recovered from the Indian Ocean by the Australian government, revealing the design to the western world for the first time. NASA begins a study of the BOR4 lifting body design, finding that it has a stable flight profile and unusually good reentry and landing characteristics, and though NASA’s version of the vehicle, HL20, is later mooted as a shuttle replacement, both countries’ space agencies pass on the design, which will later be revived by Sierra Nevada Corporation as the Dream Chaser. BOR4 is launched three more times through 1984, at which point the Soviets instead press ahead with development of Buran, a near-exact copy of the American Space Shuttle.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Star TrekProduced and co-written by Harve Bennett (The Six Million Dollar Man, The Invisible Man) and directed by Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan debuts in theaters. The story follows up on the first season TV episode Space Seed, bringing back Ricardo Montalban (who is now a star thanks to his stint on ABC’s Fantasy Island) as Khan and introducing Kirstie Alley as a new member of the Enterprise crew. With faster pacing, increased action, and a more contemporary military sci-fi feel, the sequel is a hit that guarantees future sequels, as well as gradually increasing interest on Paramount’s part to return the franchise to television years later. Read more

Moon Patrol

Moon PatrolWilliams Electronics unleashes an arcade favorite in the making, Moon Patrol. A rare case of a foreign game (originated in Japan by IREM) licensed for American distribution by Williams, Moon Patrol forces prospective moon buggy drivers to make split-second decisions about whether to shoot oncoming obstacles or vault over them in the moon’s low gravity. The game’s colorful graphics and inordinately jaunty music make it an instant hit. Read more

ISEE-3 to ICE

ISEE-3Its primary mission satisfactorily completed, the NASA/ESA ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer 3) satellite has a surplus of maneuvering fuel left over, and is given a new mission: it begins a series of over a dozen maneuvers utilizing both thrusters and gravity-assists, intended to push it out of its LaGrange point between Earth and the sun and toward a 1985 rendezvous with Comet Giacobinni-Zinner. Upon its final maneuver in 1983, ISEE-3 will be renamed ICE (International Cometary Explorer) and, after the complex series of course changes, will be perfectly targeted for its 1985 comet encounter.

Soyuz T-6

Soyuz T-6The Soviet Union launches the Soyuz T-6 mission on a week-long flight into orbit, including a visit to space station Salyut 7. Cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov and Jean-Loup Chretien – the latter being the first Frenchman in space – spend several days aboard Salyut 7 performing experiments. Chretien would fly on later missions aboard Mir and the American Space Shuttle.

STS-4

ColumbiaSpace Shuttle Columbia lifts off for the fourth and final shuttle “test flight” before NASA’s Space Transportation System is declared fully operational. Remaining in orbit for a full week, Commander Ken Mattingly and Pilot Henry Hartsfield deliver the shuttle program’s first payload for the Department of Defense, as well as some of the first student-submitted experiment packages flown in the shuttle program. Both of Columbia’s solid rocket boosters, which are considered a reusable part of the launch vehicle, are lost at sea when their parachutes fail to deploy after separation and the boosters slam into the Atlantic Ocean; neither of the rockets are able to be recovered.

Fleetwood Mac: Mirage

Fleetwood MacWarner Bros. Records releases the 13th Fleetwood Mac album, Mirage, the band’s first studio recording since 1979. With the hits “Hold Me”, “Gypsy”, “Can’t Go Back” and “Love In Store”, the album climbs the charts quickly, but the band quickly disperses to solo careers again, not recording any further new material until 1987’s Tango In The Night. Read more

Donkey Kong Junior

Donkey Kong JuniorNintendo follows up on the hugely successful Donkey Kong arcade game with its first sequel, Donkey Kong Junior. Not only does the new game prove that the original’s success wasn’t a fluke, but it gives Mario his name for the first time (well, his first name) and throws in some role reversal, putting the player in the position of having to save Donkey Kong, who was the first game’s nemesis. Read more

Challenger rollout

ChallengerCompletely refitted from a lightweight airframe originally fabricated for stress, vibration and thermal testing, Space Shuttle Challenger is rolled out of her Rockwell International assembly plant in Palmdale, California. Experience gained in the construction of Challenger’s sister ship, Columbia, means that the second completed shuttle in the fleet is over one ton lighter than Columbia. Challenger would make her first flight in just under a year.