Author: theLogBook.com

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

Voyagers!: All Fall Down

Voyagers!NBC airs the 18th episode of James D. Parriott’s time travel series Voyagers!, starring Jon-Erik Hexum and Meeno Peluce. Sam Scarber guest stars as Joe Louis. NBC cancels the series after this broadcast, with two remaining episodes being delayed until they are “burned off” in a summer time slot.

More about Voyagers! in theLogBook.com Store
Voyagers! now streaming on Amazon Prime

The Empire Strikes Back: Dark Lord’s Fury

Star Wars RadioThe eighth episode of Brian Daley’s radio drama adaptation of the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back airs on National Public Radio stations in the U.S. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprise their movie roles; Billy Dee Williams provides the voice of Lando Calrissian. Read more

STS-6: Challenger’s first flight

ChallengerSpace Shuttle Challenger lifts off into orbit for the first time, after extensive technical and mechanical issues keep the shuttle on the pad well past its original January launch date. The payload for this flight is NASA’s own TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite), designed to keep the shuttle in constant contact with ground controllers even if its orbit takes it out of direct communications. The five-day flight also sees the first spacewalk of the shuttle program. Challenger’s crew consists of Commander Paul Weitz, Pilot Karol Bobko, and mission specialists Donald Peterson and Story Musgrave.

The Empire Strikes Back: Gambler’s Choice

Star Wars RadioThe ninth episode of Brian Daley’s radio drama adaptation of the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back airs on National Public Radio stations in the U.S. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprise their movie roles; Billy Dee Williams provides the voice of Lando Calrissian. Read more

The Powers Of Matthew Star: Starr Knight

The Powers Of Matthew StarThe 22nd episode of the science fiction series The Powers Of Matthew Star airs on NBC, starring Peter Barton. This is actually the series pilot, which differs from the rest of the series in numerous major ways, but since the series had been cancelled by this point, it was aired as the final episode.

More about The Powers Of Matthew Star in theLogBook.com Store

The Empire Strikes Back: The Clash Of Lightsabers

Star Wars RadioThe tenth and final episode of Brian Daley’s radio drama adaptation of the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back airs on National Public Radio stations in the U.S. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprise their movie roles; Billy Dee Williams provides the voice of Lando Calrissian. Read more

Soyuz T-8

Soyuz T-8Soyuz T-8 lifts off from the Soviet Union, intended to dock with space station Salyut 7. Cosmonauts Vladimir Titov, Gennady Strekalov and Aleksandr Serebrov are due to take up residence on the station, but discover that the ejection of the nose cone of the Soyuz rocket – which protects the non-aerodynamic Soyuz vehicle during launch – has caused critical damage to the vehicle’s communication equipment. The mission is called off for safety reasons, and the crew returns to Earth after only two days.

Mattel Aquarius

AquariusTrying to join the ranks of game companies producing home computers, Mattel Electronics licenses a low-end computer from a Hong Kong manufacturer and releases it in the United States as the Aquarius home computer. The age of Aquarius is short-lived, however, as Mattel is incurring serious losses from slowing Intellivision sales, and the Aquarius computer quickly proves to be underpowered next to even its cheapest competitors (the Mattel programmers tasked with creating games and software for it refer to it as the “system for the ’70s”). Read more

GOES-6 goes up

GOES-6NOAA’s GOES-6 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit over 135 degrees west longitude on Earth, a position which will change several times over GOES-5’s career until 1988, allowing it to monitor weather over the continental United States and Europe. GOES-5’s primary set of “eyes” will fail in 1989, leaving GOES-7 as the sole working GOES weather satellite until the mid-1990s. Even while “blind”, GOES-5 will serve as a communications relay satellite until its boost to “graveyard” orbit and shutdown in 1992.

Star Wars

Star WarsMere weeks before Return Of The Jedi arrives in theaters, Atari releases the arcade game Star Wars in the United States, in both upright (standing) and cocktail (sit-down) models, complete with almost-intelligible sample voices from the movie of the same name. Players strafe the Death Star at lightning speeds (thanks to vector graphics, which can draw faster than full-screen raster graphics) after fending off TIE fighters. The Force is with us… for 25 cents. Read more Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

Return Of The Jedi

The Empire Strikes BackCapping off the original movie trilogy that began with Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is released. Though there will be a small number of TV projects, as well as ongoing comic and prose fiction publishing, a popular role-playing game and video games, this is the last Star Wars movie for 16 years. Read more