Ranger 3 - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

In the 1979-81 NBC science fiction television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the opening narration to each episode stated that Buck Rogers was the pilot of Ranger 3, the last of NASA's deep space probes, launched in 1987. Ranger 3 was essentially a version of the U.S. space shuttle and looked nothing like the actual probe. It is further related than an on-board accident caused Buck to enter a frozen state and hurled Ranger 3 into a wide orbit that returned Buck to Earth 500 years later.