1967 in science - Definition and Overview

The year 1967 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• January 27 - Apollo 1 destroyed in a fire on the launch pad.
• January 27 - USA, Soviet Union and UK sign the Outer Space Treaty.
• April 20 - Surveyor 3 probe lands on the Moon.
• April 24 - Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed during the landing of Soyuz 1.
• October 19 - Mariner 5 probe flies by Venus.
• November 9 - Apollo program: NASA launches a Saturn V rocket carrying the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy.
• November - Pulsars discovered by Jocelyn Bell and Antony Hewish. These are rapidly pulsating radio sources and the discovery was good for a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 (Hewish A.S. et al. 1968, Nature 217, 709-713). A year later pulsars are explained as rotating neutron stars.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Hans Bethe
  • Chemistry - Manfred Eigen, Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, George Porter
  • Medicine - Ragnar Granit, Haldan Keffer Hartline, George Wald
• Turing Award - Maurice Vincent Wilkes

Births

Deaths

• January 27 - Apollo 1 crew
  • Edward White (b. 1930)
  • Gus Grissom (b. 1926)
  • Roger Chaffee (b. 1935)
• February 18 - J. Robert Oppenheimer (b. 1904), physicist
• April 5 - Hermann Joseph Muller (b. 1890), geneticist.
• April 24 - Vladimir Komarov (b. 1927), cosmonaut on Soyuz 1.
• January 19 - Casimir Funk (b. 1884), Polish biochemist, coined the term vitamin.