59 free Apollo 11 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Apollo 11 put the first humans on the Moon on 20 July 1969, and this quiz walks through the mission hour by hour. It starts before launch: how the crew came together, why Collins designed a patch with no names, why the modules were called Columbia and Eagle, and the argument over who would step out first. Then comes the flight itself: the Saturn V lifting off before a million spectators, the 1201 and 1202 alarms, the boulder field Armstrong flew past, the fuel left in the tank, and Charlie Duke breathing again in Houston. The moonwalk gets its due, from the first step and the missing 'a' to Aldrin's communion, the flag that fell over on liftoff, the plaque, the retroreflector that still works, the silicon disc of goodwill messages and the felt-tip pen that armed the ascent engine. Then the return: Luna 15 crashing while they were still on the surface, splashdown near USS Hornet, three weeks in quarantine, ticker-tape parades for six million people and the Giant Leap world tour. The final stretch covers the men themselves: Armstrong the civilian test pilot, Aldrin the MiG killer with a doctorate, and Collins, born in Rome, who later ran the National Air and Space Museum. Easy questions suit anyone who knows the famous line; the expert tier is for spaceflight obsessives. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the mission and its crew, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. Our separate Apollo program and Apollo 13 quizzes cover the rest of the story.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date did Apollo 11's lunar module land on the Moon?
July 20, 1969
The mission launched on July 16 and splashed down on July 24; touchdown came at 20:17 UTC.
Q 02Which crew member stayed in lunar orbit aboard the command module while the other two landed?
Michael Collins
He was the second person to orbit the Moon alone, after John Young on Apollo 10.
Q 03What was the call sign of the Apollo 11 lunar module?
Eagle
The name came from the bald eagle on the mission patch; the command module was Columbia.
Q 04The command module was named Columbia after Columbiad, a giant cannon in a novel by which author?
Jules Verne
In From the Earth to the Moon (1865) the cannon fires a spacecraft from Florida, of all places.
Q 05The Apollo 11 mission patch was designed by which crew member?
Michael Collins
The crew left their names off it so it would represent everyone who had worked on the landing; the eagle later appeared on the Eisenhower dollar.
Q 06What does the eagle on the Apollo 11 patch carry in its talons?
An olive branch
It was first drawn in the beak, but was moved after Bob Gilruth felt the bare talons looked too warlike.
Q 07Roughly how many spectators watched Apollo 11 launch from nearby beaches and highways?
One million
President Nixon watched from the White House with astronaut Frank Borman at his side.
Q 08Which Soviet probe launched three days before Apollo 11 in a bid to return lunar samples first?
Luna 15
It crashed in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from the surface.
Q 09In which lunar 'sea' did Eagle land?
Sea of Tranquility
The site had been judged flat and smooth by Ranger 8, Surveyor 5 and the Lunar Orbiter mapping craft.
Q 10During the descent, the guidance computer flashed which pair of program alarm codes?
1201 and 1202
They meant executive overflow: the computer was too busy, thanks to a rendezvous radar left switched on, and shed low-priority tasks.
Q 11Which Mission Control engineer told Steve Bales it was safe to keep descending despite the alarms?
Jack Garman
Hamilton, who ran the software effort at MIT, later said blaming the computer was like blaming the person who calls the fire department.
Q 12Armstrong took semi-automatic control of Eagle as the computer steered toward boulders near which 300-foot-wide feature?
West crater
The crater was about 300 feet across; he considered landing short of it to sample the boulders but was moving too fast.
Q 13By the data available at the time, how many seconds of fuel did Eagle have left at landing?
25
Post-mission analysis suggested the true figure was closer to 50 seconds; 216 pounds of usable fuel remained.
Q 21Roughly how far into the hard lunar surface were the astronauts able to push the flagpole?
About 2 inches
Aldrin had wanted the flag-raising to go smoothest of all his jobs; the telescoping rod fought them.
Q 22What happened to the American flag when Eagle's ascent stage lifted off?
It toppled over
Aldrin looked up in time to see it fall in the engine exhaust; later crews planted their flags farther from the LM.
Q 23From where did Nixon make his 'most historic phone call' to the astronauts on the Moon?
The White House
He had a long speech ready but Frank Borman persuaded him to keep it short.
Q 14Which CAPCOM answered Armstrong's landing call from the surface with the words 'We're breathing again'?
Charlie Duke
He was so relieved he stumbled over the word Tranquility; he later walked on the Moon himself on Apollo 16.
Q 15For decades Aldrin believed the decision that Armstrong would step out first was driven largely by what?
Where the LM hatch was
A simulation with Aldrin going first ended with him damaging the simulator; Chris Kraft later revealed managers had met to make sure Armstrong went first.
Q 16About how long after landing did Armstrong step onto the surface?
Six and a half hours
The moment came at 02:56:15 UTC on July 21, after the crew skipped a planned rest period.
Q 17Armstrong's first words on the Moon are printed with which bracketed word he insisted he said?
A
Explanations range from his accent slurring the words to gaps in the audio link caused by storms near Parkes Observatory.
Q 18How many minutes after Armstrong did Aldrin step onto the Moon?
Nineteen
His first description of the view was two words: magnificent desolation.
Q 19The moonwalk was broadcast live to an estimated audience of about how many people?
600 million
That was roughly a fifth of the world's population; the best pictures came through Honeysuckle Creek and then Parkes in Australia.
Q 20The first food and liquid consumed on the Moon were what?
Communion elements
Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder, took communion privately with a kit prepared by his pastor; his church still marks the day each July.
Q 24The plaque on Eagle's ladder ends with which sentence?
We came in peace for all mankind
It bears two drawings of Earth and the signatures of the three astronauts and President Nixon.
Q 25About how much lunar material did Armstrong and Aldrin collect?
21.5 kg
The rocks were basalt and breccia and yielded three new minerals, including armalcolite, named for Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins.
Q 26Which Apollo 11 surface experiment was still in use by scientists more than 50 years after the landing?
The retroreflector array
The seismic package died when its uplink failed on August 25, 1969, but lasers were still being bounced off the mirrors in the 2020s.
Q 27The astronauts' silicon disc left on the Moon carried goodwill messages from how many countries' leaders?
73
The disc is about the size of a 50-cent piece; the messages were etched at 1/200 scale.
Q 28The crew left memorial items on the surface, including a mission patch honouring which flight's crew?
Apollo 1
The bag also held medals for the Soviet cosmonauts Gagarin and Komarov, tossed down at the last minute from Aldrin's sleeve pocket.
Q 29What did the crew use to push in the ascent-engine circuit breaker Aldrin had accidentally broken?
A felt-tip pen
The nonconductive tip of a Duro felt-tip pen did the job and got them off the Moon.
Q 30Which aircraft carrier recovered the Apollo 11 crew after splashdown in the Pacific?
USS Hornet
President Nixon was aboard to greet them; the recovery area was moved at the last minute to dodge a storm.