The week-long syndication window opens for the 20th episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Frank Ashmore (V) guest stars.
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Sunnyvale, California-based Meadows Games releases the arcade video game Gypsy Juggler in the United States. 
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The 11th episode of the live-action series based on Marvel’s comic The Incredible Hulk premieres on CBS, starring Bill Bixby, Jack Colvin, and Lou Ferrigno. Sherry Jackson (77 Sunset Strip, Batman, Star Trek) and Peter Brandon (Altered States) guest star. (more…)
NASA launches the 1,100 pound Pioneer Venus Orbiter, designed to orbit Venus for a year to study the planet’s atmosphere and its interaction with other space phenomena. Though launched separately, the two Pioneer Venus spacecraft will arrive at Venus within days of one another in December 1978. The Orbiter takes radar observations of the cloud-shrouded planet, from which the first surface map of Venus is derived. As with many other unmanned NASA spacecraft designed for relatively short-duration missions, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter outlives its design lifespan, staying fully functional into the 1990s and eventually becoming the only American spacecraft to view Halley’s Comet in 1986.
The 11th episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star. David Hedison (Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, The Fly) guest stars.
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The week-long syndication window opens for the 21st episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Mark Goddard (Lost In Space) guest stars in a remake of the 1961 One Step Beyond episode The Room Upstairs.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 12th episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The week-long syndication window opens for the 22nd episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Anne Helm guest stars in a remake of the 1959 One Step Beyond episode Forked Lightning.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The 12th episode of the live-action series based on Marvel’s comic The Incredible Hulk airs on CBS, starring Bill Bixby, Jack Colvin, and Lou Ferrigno. James Sikking (Hill Street Blues) guest stars in the first season finale.
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Atari releases the arcade video game Fire Truck, which requires two players to steer both ends of a speeding fire engine. (more…)
The 13th episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. William Jordan and Caskey Swaim star. Pamela Franklin guest stars in the first season finale.
This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
The week-long syndication window opens for the 23rd episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland.
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The 13th and final episode of the science fiction series Man From Atlantis airs on NBC, starring Patrick Duffy and Belinda J. Montgomery. Sharon Farrell (Night Of The Comet) and Billy Barty (Dr. Shrinker, Willow) guest stars. (more…)
The Alan Parsons Project releases its third album, 
Mars invades Earth again thanks to producer Jeff Wayne, who gathers an unlikely assemblage of prodigious talent around him to create a new musical version of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds. Featuring Richard Burton, Justin Hayward (of Moody Blues fame), Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann) and others, the double-album becomes an instant classic – a science fiction rock opera. (more…)
Atari releases the baseball cartridge The week-long syndication window opens for the 24th episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland.
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The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 29 on a mission to berth at space station Salyut 6 for a period of around four months. Cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Aleksandr Ivanchenkov are aboard, and they eventually set a new space endurance record, remaining in orbit for 139 days. Numerous material science experiments are carried out, as well as a spacewalk to retrieve samples of various materials left exposed to space outside the station. The crew is also assigned to take on a more rigorous exercise program. They will return to Earth in November after swapping vehicles with the crew of Soyuz 31.
NOAA’s GOES-3 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit over the Indian Ocean, replacing the first operational GOES satellite, GOES-1. GOES-3 will serve as a working weather satellite for over a decade, ultimately decommissioned from that role in 1989 and then serving as a communications satellite for the Pacific Ocean region and Antarctica, a role it continues to fill over 35 years later.
The week-long syndication window opens for the 25th and final episode of The Next Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland.
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Astronomer James Christy, conducting observations of Pluto at the United States Naval Observatory, discovers a bulging shape present in some photos he’s taken of Pluto, but absent in others. Though the find meets with some skepticism, he has discovered the largest moon of Pluto, Charon, which has a mass of over 50% that of its parent body. Orbiting at only 11,000 miles from Pluto’s surface, Charon has a radius of 750 miles. Within 20 years, closer telescopic examination (including observations using the Hubble Space Telescope) confirm that Charon is separate from Pluto. Since the two bodies are relatively similar in mass, one doesn’t actually orbit the other; rather, they both orbit a center of mass – a barycenter – that lies close to, but not within, Pluto. Further observations in the 21st century lead to the unexpected discovery of four further satellites of Pluto.
20th Century Fox files a lawsuit against Hollywood rival Universal Pictures over Universal’s upcoming made-for-TV science fiction saga Battlestar Galactica, which 20th Century Fox contends is a copy of its theatrical smash hit Star Wars. Specificially, the studio behind Star Wars claims that the television series infringes on the script for Star Wars, and requests an injunction to bring production to a halt and keep ABC from airing it. The first decision in the case won’t happen until 1980, by which time Battlestar Galactica will already have ended its TV run.
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Following a communications blackout scare in April 1978, JPL uploads an autonomous command sequence to the Voyager 2 unmanned space probe, which would allow the spacecraft to carry out a self-guided mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the results of which would automatically be transmitted to Earth even if Voyager 2 can receive no further instructions from Earth. Due to the command storage limitations of Voyager 2’s onboard computer, this automatic backup mission plan makes no allowances for pictures of Jupiter, saving that capability for Saturn instead. In the event that Voyager 2 can no longer hear commands from Earth, the extended mission to Uranus and Neptune would be forfeited in favor of “minimum science return” from Jupiter and Saturn.
Atari releases the Basketball cartridge for the Atari VCS, one of the earliest home video games to show a vaguely 3-D perspective, and probably the best-known early sports game in the console’s library. (more…)
Soyuz 30 lifts off en route to a brief visit with the crew of space station Salyut 6. This is the second manned Interkosmos mission, with cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk and the first Polish cosmonaut, Mirosław Hermaszewski, aboard. They dock at Salyut 6 after two days in orbit, and spend a total of eight days in space. Though some joint experiments are conducted among the four occupants of the station, the Soyuz 30 crew frequently has to perform experiments in its own Soyuz vehicle to avoid getting in the station crew’s way, and the mission is kept short to free up the second docking port for a Progress unmanned supply vehicle launched four days after Soyuz 30 returns to Earth.
After its introduction in June in Japan, Space Invaders is introduced to the United States by Midway Manufacturing. Its space-war-themed action arrives just in time to cash in on the public’s fascination with space and science fiction, making it a major hit (the game is already well on its way to causign coin shortages in its native Japan). In America, it pushes the arcade video game industry into high gear, priming both the industry and the public for the boom years ahead. Space Invaders‘ success also convinces Taito to start an American operation rather than continuing to license its arcade games to Midway. (more…)
The second episode of the science fiction sitcom Come Back, Mrs. Noah, created by the writing duo behind the perennial favorite Are You Being Served? and starring Mollie Sugden, is aired by the BBC. (more…)
The third episode of the science fiction sitcom Come Back, Mrs. Noah, created by the writing duo behind the perennial favorite Are You Being Served? and starring Mollie Sugden, is aired by the BBC. (more…)
Less than two years after arriving at Mars, the “mothership” orbiter that delivered the Viking 2 lander to the red planet is permanently shut down. Having lost most of its fuel to a leak, the Viking 2 orbiter can no longer be commanded to change orbit, and is placed in a parking orbit. Without an orbiter to relay its findings to, Viking 2 continues operating on the surface of Mars for two more years, sending data directly to Earth at a lower bit rate.
The fourth episode of the science fiction sitcom Come Back, Mrs. Noah, created by the writing duo behind the perennial favorite Are You Being Served? and starring Mollie Sugden, is aired by the BBC. (more…)
Atari releases the arcade game 
The fifth episode of the science fiction sitcom Come Back, Mrs. Noah, created by the writing duo behind the perennial favorite Are You Being Served? and starring Mollie Sugden, is aired by the BBC. (more…)
Trailing its supporting orbiter by several months, the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe – also known as Pioneer 13 – lifts off en route to deposit its payload of four atmospheric entry probes designed to measure the planet’s inhospitable, poisonous atmosphere. Following the launch of those probes, the Multiprobe carrier vehicle will then enter the atmosphere of Venus itself and take measurements, burning up before it ever reaches the surface.
The third in a series of three International Sun-Earth Explorer satellites, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, is launched aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. Unlike the other ISEE satellites, ISEE-3 is intended to take up a “halo” orbit at the L1 LaGrangian point between the sun and Earth, the first man-made space vehicle to do so. There it will study the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s own magnetosphere. Once its mission is completed in the early 1980s, it will be redirected and renamed to become the first Earth spacecraft to study a comet at close range.
The sixth and final episode of the science fiction sitcom Come Back, Mrs. Noah, created by the writing duo behind the perennial favorite Are You Being Served? and starring Mollie Sugden, is aired by the BBC. (more…)