Haiku in Space II - The Inquire Strikes Back Quiz

Answer: Gemini 4

James A. McDivitt and Edward White rode Gemini 4 into orbit on June 3, 1965. White became the first U.S. astronaut to walk in space, using a pressurized handheld maneuvering device to alter his trajectory. McDivitt and White had to deorbit and land manually due to failure of the automated re-entry control system. White would later lose his life along with astronauts Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee aboard Apollo 1 in 1967.

Answer: Gemini 8

Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott flew aboard Gemini 8 on March 16, 1966. Gemini 8 successfully docked with an unmanned Agena target vehicle soon after liftoff. Armstrong was forced to undock from the Agena early after the mated vehicles unexpectedly began to spin due to a control system failure. Gemini 8 quickly separated from the Agena and returned early. Armstrong would later be the first man to walk on the Moon aboard Apollo 11. Scott would walk on the Moon aboard Apollo 15, the seventh American to do so.

Answer: Apollo 7

Walter M. Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham rode Apollo 7 into orbit on October 11, 1968. Flying a mission of 11 days in length, Apollo 7 was the first test of the extensive modifications made to the Apollo command module after the Apollo 1 fire, the first launch of the Saturn 1B launch vehicle, and the first to carry three Americans into space. Perhaps due in part to the long mission length and a head cold Schirra contracted during the flight, emotional tension ran high between the crew and ground controllers, approaching open mutiny at times. Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham did not fly in space again.

Answer: Soyuz 3

Cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi rode Soyuz 3 into orbit on October 26, 1968. Soyuz 3 was the Soviet Union's second attempt to rendezvous with the unmanned Soyuz 2, launched the day before. The first attempt by Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz 1 to dock with Soyuz 2 ended in a string of mechanical failures, one of which killed Komarov during re-entry. Beregovoi was unsuccessful at docking with Soyuz 2 as well, although the two spacecraft flew within a meter of each other in orbit. Variants of the basic Soyuz spacecraft design remain in service.

Answer: Apollo 8

Apollo 8, launched on December 21, 1968 and commanded by Frank Borman with James Lovell and William Anders aboard, was the first manned spacecraft to achieve lunar orbit. Borman, Lovell, and Anders were also the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and to ride the Saturn V launch vehicle.

The crew's Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit was the most-watched television program in history at the time.

Answer: Soyuz 5

Soyuz 5, commanded by cosmonaut Boris Volynov with flight engineers Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov aboard, rendezvoused with the Soyuz 4 spacecraft piloted by Vladimir Shatalov on January 16, 1969. Yeliseyev and Khrunov spacewalked from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, joining Shatalov for the trip home.

The two spacecraft were connected by an external docking system that did not permit direct transfer from craft to craft as would become commonplace on the US Apollo missions. Volynov, returning home alone aboard Soyuz 5, broke some of his teeth during a rough re-entry caused by multiple equipment failures, landing several hundred kilometers away from the planned recovery area.

He was forced to hike to a local farmer's cottage after landing due to the bitter cold and rescue delays.

Answer: Apollo 11

Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins made history aboard Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. Armstrong and Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on another celestial body, remaining on the lunar surface for over 21 hours, as Collins piloted the Apollo command module overhead. Apollo 11 was the culmination of deceased US President John F. Kennedy's stated goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the 1960s.

Answer: Soyuz 6, 7, and 8

Soyuz 6, 7, and 8 carried a total of seven cosmonauts into orbit beginning on October 11, 1969, the largest number of humans ever in space at the same time to date. As had been done during Soyuz 4 and 5, the assumed mission objective was to transfer crew members between Soyuz 8 and Soyuz 7, with Soyuz 6 filming the exercise.

A failure due to technical problems, this joint mission was the last time that the Soviet Union would fly spacecraft specifically designed for the abortive Russian Moon program.

Answer: Apollo 13

Commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise aboard, Apollo 13 was the third US Moon mission. Launched on April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion of an oxygen tank on the way to the Moon, making a lunar landing impossible. To survive the trip home, the crew was forced to use the still-attached Lunar Module as a "lifeboat", a function it had never been designed to carry out. Due to brilliant improvisation of both the crew and ground controllers, all three crew members returned safely to Earth on April 17, 1970.

Answer: Salyut 1

Launched on April 19, 1971, Salyut 1 was the first space station placed into Earth orbit. Soyuz missions 10 and 11 docked with Salyut 1, and Soyuz 11's crew spent 22 days aboard the station. All three Soyuz 11 crew members perished during their return to Earth on June 30, 1971.

At the end of its design life, Salyut 1 was destroyed when it re-entered Earth's atmosphere on October 11, 1971.