1969 in science

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The year 1969 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Neil Armstrong on the Moon

Astronomy and space exploration

• January 15 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.
• March 3 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 to test the lunar module.
• March 13 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
• May 16 - Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus.
• May 17 - Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus', atmosphere sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
• May 18 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 launches.
• May 22 - Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.
• May 26 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing.
• July 20 - Apollo program: The human race, represented by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, lands on the Moon. Apollo 11 lifted off for the Moon on July 16 and returned safely on July 24.
• August 5 - Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers).
• November 14 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon (landed on the Moon on November 19).
• November 19 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

Biology

• Thomas D. Brock and Hudson Freeze of Indiana University publish their findings on hyperthermophilic bacteria, most notably Thermus aquaticus, a thermophilic bacterium species living at a temperature of 60-80°C in a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park. T. aquaticus (Taq) later becomes a standard source of enzymes able to withstand higher temperatures than those from E. Coli and is significant in the history of polymerase chain reaction.
• Last Przewalski's Horse sighted in the wild, in Mongolia.

Chemistry

• Dorothy Hodgkin and colleagues at the University of Oxford determine the structure of insulin.

Computer science

• April 7 - RFC 1, the first Request for Comments document from the Internet Engineering Task Force is published.
• November 21 - The first ARPANET link is established.
• The laser printer is invented at Xerox by Gary Starkweather.

Medicine

• April 4 - Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
• Reported as being the year the first strain of the AIDS virus (HIV) migrates to the United States via Haiti.
• The condition diffuse panbronchiolitis is named, in Japan.
• International adoption of the diagnostic term 'Sudden infant death syndrome'.

Meteorology

• Herbert Saffir and Bob Simpson develop the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

Paleontology

• John Ostrom publishes his findings on the dinosaur Deinonychus, describing it as being a small, agile species closely related to the birds.

Physics

• Yoichiro Nambu and Leonard Susskind make the first presentations of string theory.
• Spain withdraws from CERN.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Murray Gell-Mann
  • Chemistry - Derek Harold Richard Barton, Odd Hassel
  • Medicine - Max Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey, Salvador Luria
• Turing Award - Marvin Minsky

Births

• December 28 - Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer programmer.
• December - Adam Riess, American astrophysicist, Nobel laureate in Physics in 2011.

Deaths

• May 14 - Walter Pitts (b. 1923), American logician and cognitive psychologist.
• June 24 - Willy Ley (b. 1906), German American scientific populariser.
• August 8 - Otmar von Verschuer (b. 1896), German eugenicist.
• August 17 - Otto Stern (b. 1888), German physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics in 1943.
• September 16 - Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. (b. 1887), American conservationist.
• September 24 - Warren Sturgis McCulloch (b. 1898), American neurophysiologist and cybernetician.
• October 21 - Wacław Sierpiński (b. 1882), Polish mathematician.
• November 12 - William F. Friedman (b. 1891), Russian American cryptanalyst.