It was a year that saw roughly six million Americans hold hands in a continuous (more or less) line across the country to raise money for homelessness. A news anchor named Oprah Winfrey debuted her new talk show. In London, a musical based on Gaston Leroux’s 1909 Gothic horror novel The Phantom of the Opera took its first steps on the path to becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history. Meanwhile, Top Gun and Ferris Bueller battled for movie theater box office supremacy, while Madonna, Bon Jovi, and Whitney Houston dominated the radio.
But it was also a year of scientific and technological innovations, milestones and benchmarks that would literally change the way we live, communicate and see the world (and beyond).
This was 1986. And these are the moments that truly changed everything.
1. The Space Race Continued
The quest to send a manned mission to the moon began in the 1960s, but the race to go further and stay longer still had plenty of momentum well into the 1980s. The United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan would all make extraordinary leaps forward in 1986, starting with NASA’s Voyager 2. Originally launched in 1977, Voyager 2 would become the first human-made object to fly past Uranus in 1986, on its way to being the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system’s giant planets–Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus–at close range.
The same year, the Soviet Union began in-orbit construction of a modular space station called Mir (after the Russian word for “world,” which can also mean “community”). It would be the longest-lasting, most elaborate space station to date, and would house a total of 105 cosmonauts from 11 different nationalities including Russian, French, Austrian, German, and British scientists over the ensuing years. Its goal was to better understand the challenges and obstacles in the way of permanent space living.
Finally, 1986 also saw the Japanese spacecraft Suisei, carrying a UV imaging system and solar wind instruments, get close enough to the year’s other big pop culture phenomenon–Halley’s Comet–to make some of the first significant findings of the mysterious galactic phenomenon that had returned after 76 years. Suisei was able to document Halley’s rotation through ultraviolet imaging, measurement of variations in its water-discharge rate, and observations of ions originating from the comet being captured by the earth magnetosphere.
2. Voyages Closer to Home
Back on Earth, less galactically inclined aircraft were making enormous strides of their own. Just as the year was coming to an end on December 23, 1986, a plane known as the Rutan Voyager (named after one of the pilots and the plane’s designer, brothers Dick and Burt Rutan) completed the first nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world.
It completed the task in just nine days, with Dick Rutan and co-pilot Jeana Yeager (interestingly, not related to the other famous aviator, Chuck Yeager) at the helm. Not only was the mission impressive, it helped prove the durability and usefulness of lightweight composite materials (carbon fiber, epoxy) that would go on to help fuel advancements in everything from luxury automobiles to sports equipment.
3. The Birth of the Laptop
On April 2, 1986, IBM debuted the IBM PC Convertible, the first commercially available laptop.
Although weighing in at a chunky 13 pounds and about as conveniently portable as a small suitcase, the PC Convertible nonetheless marked a significant step in the evolution of the home computer. What used to take up an entire room had become something that could fit on your desk and now was something you could take with you relatively easily.
Just two years prior, the first commercially available handheld portable phone had been introduced and while it, like the PC Convertible, didn’t radically change the way we work and communicate overnight, they laid the groundwork for the laptops and smartphones we can’t live without today.
4. Silver Screen Science
Not only were there plenty of blockbusters cementing their legacies as cultural touchstones and enduring cult favorites in 1986, but some were also slowly pushing the envelope in ways that would completely change the art form forever. And one of them was Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. Yes, Labyrinth, the PG-rated 1986 fantasy oddity that famously paired goblin puppets with rock star David Bowie (wearing questionably PG-13 jodhpurs).
It turns out, the white owl that flies over the opening credits was the first use of a realistic computer-generated animal. It wasn’t quite Jurassic Park yet, but the seeds were sown.
Meanwhile, at the Canada Pavillion at Expo ’86–the world’s fair hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia–audiences sat for a specially-created film called Transitions. What they didn’t know at the time was that this was the first ever full-color 3D IMAX movie. Between this and Labyrinth, you can say that the path of Avatar started in 1986.
Oh, and filmmaker George Lucas was getting divorced. This isn’t science, but he was three years past his triumphant Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and the financial strain from ending his marriage coupled with the box office bombing of his 1986 film Howard the Duck (an MCU film before it was cool…or successful) led him to sell off the computer animation division of Lucasfilm. The buyer? Steve Jobs. The company would become known as Pixar and its first short film, Luxo Jr. (starring a sentient desk lamp that remains part of Pixar’s logo to this day), would be the first CGI film nominated for an Academy Award and would set Pixar on the path to revolutionizing animated movies.
5. Gaming Builds Its Foundations
The primitive forms of home video game systems had begun laying some groundwork in the late ‘70s, but the broad U.S. launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986 (after being released in test markets a year earlier) took everything to the next level.
While this system was revolutionary from a hardware perspective, it was 1986 that saw the early stages of true video game fandom, and the acceptance of video games as an entertainment entity alongside movies, television, and music in ways they really hadn’t been before. Yes, Pac-Man was a pop culture phenomenon, with breakfast cereals and even a novelty hit song, but the arrival of the NES and, more importantly, the debuts of games like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Dragon Quest in 1986 introduced games with more sprawling play styles and deep lore. These weren’t the same repetitive games meant to keep you pumping quarters into an arcade machine, they were an introduction to what would eventually grow into RPGs and open-world gaming experiences.
6. Progress Is Not Without Its Challenges
Sadly, not every world-changing moment in 1986 was a positive one. Science saw two of its greatest disasters strike that year, and their resonance is still being felt.
The first occurred on January 28, 1986, when millions watched live on TV as NASA’s Challenger space shuttle exploded seconds after launch. More than just a shuttle launch, Challenger held the attention of the world because one of its passengers was a civilian schoolteacher named Christa McAuliffe. While the world mourned, NASA investigated the tragic accident and not only discovered technical explanations that would change their processes and equipment–it turned out the rubber seals on the rocket boosters deteriorated in the extreme cold temperatures of that day–but it would also revamp its safety and accountability protocols to ensure future successful launches.
Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (1986)
A few months later, in April 1986, a sudden power surge during a reactor systems test caused a meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). The fallout impacted vast areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, and a 30 km (roughly 18 mile) area around the plant is still uninhabited.
In the aftermath, organizations like the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) worked to identify the plant’s weaknesses and improved and upgraded the design safety of related reactors. There was also significant work done to heighten the focus on operational safety and regulatory oversight, improving shutdown mechanisms and increasing general safety awareness among nuclear reactor staff.
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