Gravity Getting You Down? Trivia Quiz

Answer: 2000

The first commercially-sold trampolines were developed by George Nissen and Larry Griswold, who founded the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Company in 1942, just six years after making their first trampoline together. Nissen and Griswold were teammates on the Universty of Iowa gymnastics team.

The first Trampoline World Championships were held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England in 1964.

Answer: California

The first record of a skateboard sighting was in Paris in 1944 (roller skate wheels attached to a plank), but skateboarding as we know it today grew out of surf culture. The first manufactured boards were made in the 1950s for surfers looking for something to maintain their skills when they had no waves to ride. It was called 'sidewalk surfing'.

Until skate parks and other manufactured platforms (like half-pipes) were purpose-built, skateboarders made use of places like reservoirs and swimming pools to get their anti-gravity kicks.

Teenager Tom Stewart and his friends had tried skateboarding in some 24-foot diameter water pipes, which gave him the idea of the half-pipe. He got the help of his architect brother and they designed and built one in their front yard. It quickly made the news, and Stewart quickly formed a company (Rampage, Inc.) to sell his blueprints.

Answer: Norway

Lieutenant Olaf Rye managed a jump of 9.5 metres as a display of courage outside the Eidsberg church in Eidsberg, Norway. His accomplishment is a source of pride to both Norway and Denmark, as at the time the two countries were a united political entity (Danmark-Norge). Rye was born in Bø, Telemark, Norway, and is buried in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Although both Denmark and Norway hold some claim to Rye, it was Norway that continued the development of ski jumping into the first public competition at Trysil in 1862. It was not until the 1920s that it was competed internationally, but it has featured in every Winter Olympics since the first one (Chamonix, France, 1924).

Answer: True

On April Fools' Day in 1979, Oxford University students David Kirke and Simon Keeling bungee jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, a height of 79 metres. Although they were arrested for doing so, they went on to replicate their feat from other more famous and higher bridges (like the Golden Gate Bridge, for instance), and from cranes and hot air balloons as well.

The world's first permanent commercial bungee site was established by New Zealander A.J. Hackett at the Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge (near Queenstown) on New Zealand's South Island.

Answer: All of these

Attempts at flight in the manner of gliding had been attempted by man for centuries before Otto Lilienthal came along, but his innovations in unpowered heavier-than-air flight laid the groundwork for the powered flights that would soon follow. His work was the inspiration for the Wright brothers to pursue powered flight.

"Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important. ... It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted." ~ Wilbur Wright (quote from Wikipedia)

Sadly and ironically, Lilienthal died when he broke his neck in a gliding accident in 1896.

Answer: Freestyle motocross

Motocross traces its lineage back to 1924 and an off-road race called 'The Scrambles' (held in Surrey in the UK). Over the coming years, tracks would be refined to be shorter and include jumps and obstacles and races would involve multiple laps. Improvements in technology helped develop purpose-made motocross bikes that varied greatly from their road bike brethren.

Today, motocross events cover the spectrum from racing to exhibitions of aerobatic skill.

Answer: An ascending-gliding parachute

At the time of Lemoigne's design changes, the ParaCommander parachute was the 'chute of choice for most skydivers and for the military. It was a suspension line parachute with steering slots, making it very maneuverable. Lemoigne "sealed the top steering slots then added stabilizer and exhaust vents allowing on oncoming air flow to be redirected to provide lift." (quote from the Parasail Safety Council webpage)

Lemoigne marketed his new 'chute as a 'parasail', and sold it to the Pioneer Parachute Company.

Answer: Ultralight

There are actually a variety of 'aircraft' that qualify as ultralights, depending on the definition. Most common among these are powered parachutes (as seen in the picture), powered paragliders, powered hang gliders, weight-shift control trikes, light fixed-wing aircraft, and even a version of helicopter called the autogyro. A hot-air balloon can also qualify as an ultralight.

Answer: True

There is actually some controversy as to whether or not Grant Morton's 1911 parachute jump from the Model B airplane was the real first time, but if that's what the Skydiving.com website history page says, then I'm going with it.

Prior to the advent of flight, parachuting was limited to jumping from raised platforms (towers and bridges and cliffs). Joseph Montgolfier brought about the first real attempts at true 'skydiving' with his hot air balloons in the late 18th century. Powered flight, however, brought new complications as all earlier attempts at parachuting had essentially been done from a stationary point. Jumping from a moving platform required new parachutes and new techniques.

Answer: Aleksei A. Leonov

In the early space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the Soviets had the upper hand. They put the first man in orbit (Yuri Gagarin) on April 12th, 1961, while American Alan Shepard followed suit only 23 days later on May 5th.

The same thing happened with the first EVA (extravehicular activity) when Aleksei Leonov stepped out of the Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes (on March 18th, 1965). Edward White II replicated this feat with a 23-minute spacewalk on June 5th (79 days later).