1984: Shuttle astronauts retrieve the malfunctioning Solar Max astronomy satellite, fix it and send it back into orbit. It’s the first time a satellite has been repaired in space.

The Solar Maximum mission had been launched Feb. 14, 1980. But it was having trouble with its altitude-control system, and the electronics in the coronagraph instrument were wonky.

Space shuttle Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on on April 6. Five days later, astronauts George Nelson and James van Hoften used the Remote Manipulator System robot arm to retrieve the buggy satellite from orbit and...

Deconstructing the Airport Express. Photo: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

Programmer James Laird wanted to help his girlfriend stream her iTunes music in her new house, so he hacked away at Apple’s private key for streaming music, reverse-engineered the script, and made it available to the public.

Laird calls his open source Perl script Shairport, which lets hardware and software receive AirTunes music from iTunes.

Apple uses a public-key encryption scheme for AirTunes streaming. This lets anyone encrypt and stream audio to the AirPort Express (or other compatible device), but iTunes would only stream...