Inside the 1960s space race
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Inside the 1960s Space Race — Daily trivia Monday, September 21, 2026: questions and answers
All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily
Q 01How did Gagarin return to Earth at the end of Vostok 1?
- ABy parachute, after ejecting from the capsule
- BInside the capsule, under its parachute
- CBy splashing down at sea
- DBy gliding to a runway
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By parachute, after ejecting from the capsule
By parachute, after ejecting from the capsule at about 7 km up; the Vostok had no soft-landing system. The Soviets hid this for years because record-keeping rules required a pilot to land with his craft.
Q 02After Tereshkova in 1963, how many years until America flew a woman?
- A2
- B8
- C14
- D20
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20
20 years: Valentina Tereshkova orbited alone for three days aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. NASA's first woman, Sally Ride, did not fly until June 1983, by which time the Soviets had flown a second, Svetlana Savitskaya, in 1982.
Q 03What did Alan Shepard do during the four-hour delay before launching?
- AWet his spacesuit
- BFell asleep
- CAte a sandwich
- DPhoned his wife
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Wet his spacesuit
Wet his spacesuit: after more than four hours strapped in on the pad, Shepard was told there was no provision for urinating, so he did anyway. His 15-minute suborbital hop on 5 May 1961 came three weeks after Gagarin's orbit.
Q 04When did the Soviets publicly reveal chief designer Sergei Korolev's name?
- AAfter his death in 1966
- BAfter Sputnik in 1957
- CAfter Gagarin's flight in 1961
- DAfter the Soviet collapse in 1991
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After his death in 1966
After his death in 1966: the Soviet press called Korolev only 'the Chief Designer' to keep his identity from the West; his name first appeared in his Pravda obituary, and he was buried in the Kremlin Wall.
Q 05Gemini astronauts rode what kind of converted rocket into orbit?
- AA weather-research rocket
- BAn intercontinental ballistic missile
- CA navy anti-aircraft missile
- DA German V-2 derivative
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An intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile: every Gemini crew launched on a modified Titan II, the same rocket that sat in silos with nuclear warheads. Mercury's Atlas was an ICBM too, and so was the Soviet R-7 that launched Sputnik and Gagarin.
Q 06Which mission made the first successful soft landing on the Moon?
- ASurveyor 1
- BLuna 9
- CRanger 7
- DApollo 11
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Luna 9
Luna 9 touched down on 3 February 1966 and proved the surface would bear weight. Its first photographs were intercepted by Britain's Jodrell Bank telescope, decoded as fax signals and printed in the Daily Express before Moscow released them.
Q 07Why did Leonov vent air from his suit on the first spacewalk?
- ATo stop his visor fogging
- BA valve was leaking
- CIt had ballooned too stiff to fit the airlock
- DTo propel himself back
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It had ballooned too stiff to fit the airlock
It had ballooned too stiff to fit the airlock: in vacuum Leonov's suit inflated until he could not bend, so he bled pressure to a risky level and squeezed in head first. Ed White's American spacewalk followed 11 weeks later.
Q 08Which mission first carried humans into orbit around the Moon?
- AApollo 11
- BApollo 10
- CApollo 8
- DGemini 12
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Apollo 8
Apollo 8 was sent to the Moon in December 1968 partly because intelligence suggested a Soviet Zond capsule might carry cosmonauts around it first. Zond 5 had already flown two tortoises around the Moon and back that September.
Q 09How many times did the Soviet N1 Moon rocket launch successfully?
- AFour
- BOne
- CTwo
- DZero
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Zero
Zero: the N1, the Soviet answer to the Saturn V with 30 first-stage engines, launched four times between 1969 and 1972 and failed every time; the second blew up on the pad in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever.
Q 10Kennedy's September 1963 UN speech proposed making the Moon landing what?
- AA United Nations programme
- BA joint US-Soviet expedition
- CA 1970s goal instead
- DA robotic mission only
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A joint US-Soviet expedition
A joint US-Soviet expedition: Kennedy told the UN General Assembly on 20 September 1963 that the two rivals should go to the Moon together rather than race. He was assassinated two months later and the idea died with him.
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