Q 01/05

Which cosmonaut became the first woman in space, twenty years before Ride?

A) Svetlana Savitskaya

B) Valentina Tereshkova

C) Yelena Kondakova

D) Anna Kikina

Answer · why

B) Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova. The former textile worker orbited for three days in 1963, but Moscow then waited 19 years to fly a second woman, by which time N...

Q 02/05

Which Space Shuttle carried Ride on her first flight?

A) Columbia

B) Challenger

C) Discovery

D) Enterprise

Answer · why

B) Challenger

Challenger. Ride flew both her missions aboard it and was training for a third when it broke apart after launch in 1986, a loss she was then asked to ...

Q 03/05

How did Ride sum up her first flight to reporters after landing?

A) The hardest work I'll ever do

B) The most fun I'll ever have

C) The longest week of my life

D) A job like any other

Answer · why

B) The most fun I'll ever have

The most fun I'll ever have. What followed was less fun: months of interviews and appearances that she called incessant, until a second flight assignm...

Q 04/05

Ride, 32, was the youngest American in orbit until 2021, when a 29-year-old flew with which company?

A) Blue Origin

B) SpaceX

C) Virgin Galactic

D) Boeing

Answer · why

B) SpaceX

SpaceX. Hayley Arceneaux was given her seat because the flight was raising money for St Jude, the children's hospital that treated her bone cancer at ...

Q 05/05

Ride's first mission carried an experiment on which ailment?

A) Space sickness

B) Bone loss

C) Radiation burns

D) Decompression sickness

Answer · why

A) Space sickness

Space sickness. The nausea hits many astronauts in their first days of weightlessness, so crewmate Norman Thagard, a doctor, ran tests on it in orbit.