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The year 1972 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• January 5 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
• February 4 - Mariner 9 sends pictures from Mars
• February 21 - The Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
• March 2 - Launch of Pioneer 10 spacecraft.
• April 16 - Apollo 16 launched
• July 23 - The United States launches Landsat 1, first Earth-resources satellite.

Biology

• Socorro Doves (Zenaida graysoni) last seen in the wild. The species precariously survives in captivity. A reintroduction program is being prepared.

Computer science

• Cray Research founded.

Technology

• February 1 - First scientific hand-held calculator later designated, HP-35 introduced. The first hand-held calculator contained no numerical designation but was simply labeled Hewlett - Packard. The price was 795.00

• October - The First International Conference on Computer Communications was held in Washington, D.C. and hosted the first public demo of ARPAnet, a precursor to the Internet.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, John Robert Schrieffer
  • Chemistry - Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, William H. Stein
  • Medicine - Gerald Edelman, Rodney R Porter
• Turing Award - Edsger Dijkstra

Births

Deaths

• October 1 - Louis Leakey (d. 1903 in science), British paleontologist.