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Space & Astronomy Medium ⚡ 10 Questions ⏱️ ~8 Mins +100 XP

Space Race Firsts

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For twenty-four years the two superpowers competed to be first at everything beyond the atmosphere. These are ten of the milestones that resulted, and who reached them.

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About this topic

The space race was short. Sputnik went up in October 1957 and the first Space Shuttle flew in April 1981, and almost every famous first sits inside that window. The Soviet Union took most of the early ones, which is largely why the American programme was aimed at something as unambiguous as the Moon. The questions here cover satellites, spacewalks, stations, landers and probes rather than the Apollo landings alone. Several of the answers are missions people have heard of without being sure what they actually did first.

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Space Race Firsts: all 10 questions and answers

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1What was the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth?
- A Explorer 1
- B Vanguard 1
- C Luna 1
- D Sputnik 1 Correct
Answer: D. Sputnik 1

Why: Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957 and was little more than a polished metal sphere with a radio transmitter. Its batteries lasted about three weeks, and the beeping was audible to amateur radio operators worldwide.
2Who was the first American to fly in space?
- A Gus Grissom
- B Neil Armstrong
- C Alan Shepard Correct
- D John Glenn
Answer: C. Alan Shepard

Why: Alan Shepard made a suborbital flight of about fifteen minutes in May 1961, a few weeks after Yuri Gagarin's orbit. John Glenn became the first American to actually orbit Earth the following February.
3Who was the first woman in space?
- A Helen Sharman
- B Valentina Tereshkova Correct
- C Sally Ride
- D Svetlana Savitskaya
Answer: B. Valentina Tereshkova

Why: Valentina Tereshkova flew solo aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963, completing 48 orbits over roughly three days. No other woman flew for nineteen years, and Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983.
4Who made the first spacewalk?
- A Alexei Leonov Correct
- B Yuri Gagarin
- C Ed White
- D Gherman Titov
Answer: A. Alexei Leonov

Why: Alexei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule for about twelve minutes in March 1965. His suit ballooned in the vacuum and he had to bleed air out of it to squeeze back through the airlock.
5Which Apollo mission first carried a crew around the Moon?
- A Apollo 7
- B Apollo 10
- C Apollo 12
- D Apollo 8 Correct
Answer: D. Apollo 8

Why: Apollo 8 orbited the Moon ten times over Christmas 1968 without landing. The crew took the Earthrise photograph, which is often credited with changing how people pictured their own planet.
6Which Apollo mission was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion on the way to the Moon?
- A Apollo 12
- B Apollo 14
- C Apollo 13 Correct
- D Apollo 9
Answer: C. Apollo 13

Why: A tank ruptured in the service module of Apollo 13 in April 1970, ending any chance of landing. The crew survived by using the lunar module as a lifeboat and looping round the Moon to get home.
7What was the first space station placed in orbit?
- A Almaz
- B Salyut 1 Correct
- C Skylab
- D Mir
Answer: B. Salyut 1

Why: The Soviet Union launched Salyut 1 in April 1971, two years ahead of the American Skylab. Its story ended badly: the only crew to occupy it died when their capsule depressurised on the way home.
8Which lander returned the first pictures from the surface of Mars, in 1976?
- A Viking 1 Correct
- B Mars Pathfinder
- C Mariner 4
- D Phoenix
Answer: A. Viking 1

Why: Viking 1 touched down in July 1976 and kept working for more than six years. Its biology experiments produced results that scientists are still arguing about.
9Which pair of probes launched in 1977 to tour the outer planets?
- A Pioneer 10 and 11
- B Viking 1 and 2
- C Mariner 9 and 10
- D Voyager 1 and 2 Correct
Answer: D. Voyager 1 and 2

Why: The Voyagers took advantage of an alignment of the outer planets that occurs roughly every 175 years. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have flown past both Uranus and Neptune.
10Which orbiter flew the first Space Shuttle mission in 1981?
- A Discovery
- B Atlantis
- C Columbia Correct
- D Challenger
Answer: C. Columbia

Why: Columbia launched on 12 April 1981 with a crew of two for a two-day test flight. The date was exactly twenty years after Gagarin's flight, and it was the first time a new American spacecraft carried a crew on its maiden launch.

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