Goddard's imagination and inventiveness is encouraged by his father, who gives him a telescope, microscope, and subscription to Scientific American. He is constantly tinkering, trying to work aluminium, build a rigid-skin balloon. Illness prevents him from attending classes, so he becomes self-educated. Uniquely among rocket pioneers he is inspired by H G Wells' War of the Worlds rather than the works of Jules Verne. On this date, while climbing a cherry tree, the ten year old had a vision. He saw a huge flying machine, propelled by whirling unequal horizontal centrifugal devices, rising from a pit, heading for Mars. Although he would give up working on a 'perpetual motion' device of this type for several years, he abandoned the idea when he discovered Newton's laws of motion.

The Goddard P series pump-turbine tests had run from November 1939-October 1941. The series included 15 proving-stand tests and nine attempts at flight tests, of which only two resulted in flights. Average interval between tests was 28 days. This also ended Goddard development of liquid fuel rockets for space flight. Beginning in September 1941 with the impending involvement of the US in the world war, the Goddard rocket establishment worked under contracts with the Bureau of Aeronautics of the Navy Department and the Army Air Forces. Up to that point Goddard's team had completed 103 liquid rocket proving stand tests and made 48 attempts at flight tests, of which 31 resulted in rocket flights

The crew arrives at Vnukovo Airfield at 12:30 aboard an Il-18. The crew walks up to the reviewing stand and Komarov makes the standard report to the Communist Party and Soviet Ministers. At 14:00 there is a meeting at Red Square, and at 17:00 an audience at the Kremlin. The next day will be the customary meeting with Korolev and the workers of OKB-1, and the day after, the press conference, and on 22 October the meeting with the staff at the Cosmonaut Training Centre. The celebrations provide the first opportunity for Brezhnev to present himself in public in the role previously held by Khrushchev. The celebrations are somewhat dampened by new that an Il-18 crashed near Belgrade, killing all 17 occupants of a military delegation, including Marshal Biryuzov. This was the same aircraft and same crew that had flown the cosmonauts from Kustanin to Tyuratam....

Marshall Space Flight Center Director Wernher von Braun wrote MSC Director Robert R. Gilruth that MSFC had spent a considerable effort in planning the transfer of study and development tasks in the lunar exploration program to MSC. Von Braun said, "We feel it is in the spirit of the MSF Hideaway Management Council Meeting held on August 13-15, 1966, to consider the majority of our Lunar Exploration Work Program for transfer to MSC in consonance with Bob Seamans' directive which designates MSC as the Lead Center for lunar science." He added that MSFC had formulated a proposal which it felt was in agreement with the directives and at the same time provided for management interfaces between the two Centers without difficulty.

Briefly MSFC proposed to transfer to MSC:

1. planning for Apollo Applications lunar traverses;
2. lunar surface geological, geophysical, geochemical, biological, and biomedical experiments; and
3. emplaced scientific station experiments.

1. the local scientific survey module and related mobility efforts,
2. Apollo Applications program lunar drill,
3. lunar surveying system, and
4. lunar flying device (one man flying machine).

Von Braun said that Ernst Stuhlinger of the Research Projects Laboratory had discussed the proposed actions for transfer of functions to MSC, and MSC Experiments Program Manager Robert O. Piland had indicated his general agreement, pending further consideration. He asked that Gilruth give his reaction to the proposal and said, "It would be very helpful if our two Centers could present a proposal to George Mueller (OMSF) on which we both agree."

The first phase of the Minuteman ICBM Force Modernization (WS 133A-Modernized or WS 133A-M) program was officially completed. This was marked by the formal turnover of 150 Minuteman it (LGM-30F) missile launchers to SAC's 351st Strategic Missile Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. The completion of the first Force Modernization wing gave the Strategic Air Command 350 of the advanced Minuteman II missiles out of the total force of 1,000 Minuteman ICBMs.

In the euphoria after the return of the Soyuz 6/7/8 crews, the problem was how to get Ustinov to meet further with the DOS 'conspirators'. Mishin had prohibited any meetings by TsKBEM staff with the Communist Party Secretary unless Mishin was also present. Another obstacle was that Feoktistov was not a party member; how could his presence at a party meeting be explained to Mishin later?

In any event these consideations were simply ignored. Feoktistov was present at a party meeting with Keldysh, Afanasyev, Tyulin, Serbin, and the Ministry of Defence's party cell: Strogonov, Kravtsev, and Popov. Keldysh was mainly worried how the project would affect the N1, but was reassured that the N1 had a dedicated work force, and the L3 lunar lander spacecraft engineers and workers that would work on DOS were currently idle and had no part of that work. It was finally decided to go ahead with the DOS no earlier than January, to allow time for Ministry Decrees, approval of a work plan by the VPK, preparation of a decree for signature by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Ministers. Work began on the project in December 1969 under the initial auspices of the Academy of Sciences. Additional Details: here....

State commission meets to do a post mortem on the Soyuz 6-7-8 mission. Kamanin gives a 15-minute briefing on the readiness of the crews for flight. He pointed to the need for more information and training on manual flight and navigation of the spacecraft, and more active use of the pilots throughout the mission. Then the commission acts out a few scenes of their meting for the press, television, and a documentary filmmaker. The Soyuz crews are undergoing medical exams at Area 17 at Baikonur.

Continued operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph radio-communication system within the Soviet Union and transmission of USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita and participating international networks (international cooperation scheme).

Ariane third stage. Launched by European Space Agency. Launch time 0045:36 GMT. Launched spacecraft Intelsat V F7. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 60 deg E in 1984-1985; 66 deg E in 1985-1991; 57 deg E in 1991-1995; 47 deg E in 1995-1996 As of 28 August 2001 located at 140.34 deg E drifting at 2.062 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 88.83W drifting at 2.097W degrees per day.

Western Europe digital TV; 18 Ku-band transponders. Stationed at 19.2 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 19 deg E in 1995-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 19.16 deg E drifting at 0.002 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 19.18E drifting at 0.019W degrees per day.

Satellite used for international communications; complement the Telstar satellites operated by Loral Skynet. Stationed at 15 deg W. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 15 deg W in 1999. As of 6 September 2001 located at 14.97 deg W drifting at 0.006 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 14.99W drifting at 0.006W degrees per day.

Third Fengyun-2 weather satellite. The apogee motor placed the satellite into a drifting geostationary orbit. As of the date of the launch, four FY-2 satellites had been launched. FY-2 01 was destroyed in a ground fire 1994. FY-2 02 / FY-2A was placed in reserve in May 2000 86 deg E; and FY-2 03 / FY-2B was operational at 123 deg E. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 104.44E drifting at 0.026W degrees per day.

Delayed from 2003; February 2004; and June 30, July 10, September 9, 2005. Last launch of the Titan series put a classified National Reconnaisance Office satellite into polar orbit. Its orbital parameters, as determined by amateur observors, suggested it was an Improved Crystal electronic imaging reconnaissace satellite, replacing USA 129, which was launched in 1996.

European polar weather satellite equipped with high-resolution visible and infrared cameras, a microwave sounder, ozone monitors, a GPS atmospheric sounding device, a wind scatterometer, and a search and rescue package. First launch of the Soyuz 2 version of the venerable Soyuz launch vehicle. The main change in this first version of the new booster was a digital control system. Problems with this system delayed the launch repeatedly.

Soyuz MS-02 with astronauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Andrey Borisenko and Shane Kimbrough. They docked with the Poisk module at 0952 UTC Oct 21. On Apr 10, Soyuz MS-02 undocked from Poisk at 0757 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at 1120 UTC, returing Ryzhikov, Borisenko and Kimbrough to Earth. Peggy Whitson became ISS commander of Expedition 51.