The A-Z of Project Apollo Trivia Quiz

Answer: Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin

During the early planning stages for the first lunar landing 'Buzz' Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) expected to be the first to set foot on the moon, because in the Gemini missions the pilot in the right hand seat always did the Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA).

However due to an engineering decision made when building the LM the exit hatch was hinged to open toward the pilot so it made sense for the Commander Neil Armstrong to exit first as there would be complications trying to swap positions while fully suited up in the cramped confines of the LM.

Answer: Frank Borman

One congratulatory message at the conclusion of the mission read: 'You just saved 1968'.
In marked contrast to this occasion Frank Borman likened his first spaceflight experience with fellow astronaut Jim Lovell on the long duration Gemini 8 mission as being like: 'spending 14 days in an orbiting men's room'.
Alan Bean was the fourth man to walk on the moon and later was Commander of the second Skylab crew.
Vance Brand was a member of the Apollo Soyuz Test Mission.
Martin Bormann was Adolf Hitler's private secretary.

Answer: Michael Collins

Michael Collins is forever remembered as the one who did not land on the moon. Later when asked by a reporter what was going through his mind in the crucial seconds before his historic launch he said he was acutely aware that he was sitting on top of a rocket which had been built by the lowest bidder!

Answer: D

The neat sequence of planned missions which would test increasingly more complicated aspects of the moon landing was thrown into disarray when the bold Apollo 8 mission accomplished several of the planned steps in one mission and became known as the 'C- Prime' mission.
The first moon landing by Apollo 11 was the 'G' mission.

Answer: Eagle

'The Eagle has landed' is one of the most well remembered phrases from the Apollo days. 'Eagle' was the name the crew gave their LM and the mission patch is the only one that does not have the names of the crew incorporated into the design. Michael Collins who was largely responsible for designing it said that the mission was for all mankind and therefore bigger than the individuals who accomplished it.

Answer: Fuel cells

Hydrogen and oxygen was stored in pressurised tanks and slowly fed into a fuel cell to produce electricity and water. It was one of these tanks that infamously exploded on Apollo 13 leading to a four-day crisis that gripped the attention of the world.

Answer: Grumman Engineering

A team led by Tom Kelly of Grumman Engineering hand built each Lunar Module and they performed brilliantly on each mission. The LM's capabilities were extended with each mission and by the end of the programme they were supporting two astronauts with their own roving vehicle on the lunar surface for three days.

Answer: Hadley Rille

The Hadley Apennine region was targeted because it offered the opportunity to sample an area with a variety of geological features that had not been sampled on previous missions. Significantly, in the words of Commander David Scott, the region was good for the soul with its dramatic backdrop of Mt Hadley rising to 4000m and the nearby canyon-like Hadley Rille plunging to depths of 366m.

Answer: False

It was the Instrument Unit (IU) which controlled the Saturn V during flight. The IMU was the guidance platform used by the Apollo CSM to align itself correctly once it was in orbit. The IMU was a beach ball sized sphere located beneath the centre couch which contained three gyroscopes which were in turn contained in smaller spheres called gimbals.

The first task of the Command Module Pilot once they were in orbit was to find their position by taking readings from the unit and comparing them with readings that had been taken before launch.

The value of having the IU in the Saturn V and the IMU in Apollo operating independently of each other was dramatically demonstrated when two lightning bolts struck Apollo 12 during the first few seconds of launch.

The IMU at the pointy end in Apollo was briefly thrown off line at a critical time but fortunately the Saturn V IU was unaffected and successfully placed Apollo 12 into orbit.

Answer: J-2

The J-2 engines were powered by the high energy cryogenic Liquid Oxygen (LO2) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) and produced 200,000 lbs of thrust each. In the case of the J-2 powered S-IVB third stage it had to have the tricky capability of being able to be re-started in orbit in order to send Apollo on its way to the moon in a manoeuvre known as Trans Lunar Injection (TLI).

Answer: Christopher Kraft

Christopher Kraft developed and ran Mission Control in Houston using his experience from the project Mercury and Gemini days. There were four flight control teams one of which was on duty at all times during an Apollo mission. Eugene Kranz was the Flight Director for one of these teams and Joe Kerwin, was one of the astronauts who served as a Capcom, the voice of Mission Control.

Answer: Little Joe II

The Apollo Command Module (CM) attached to the LES tower was mated to a Little Joe II rocket which boosted it to various altitudes to test the escape system's effectiveness at pulling the CM away from the rocket simulating an emergency. These tests took place at White Sands test range in New Mexico.

Answer: Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

The Marshall Space Flight Center under the direction of Wernher von Braun managed the contracts, tested the hardware, and integrated the thousands of elements that went into the development of the Saturn rockets. The Manned Spacecraft Centre later renamed the Lyndon Johnson Space Centre managed the development of the Apollo CSM and LM.
The Michoud Assembly Facility was used by Boeing to assemble the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was not a major NASA location.

Answer: Nova

The Nova would have utilised 8 F-1 engines in the first stage (as opposed to 5 for Saturn V) and would have launched a single vehicle directly at the moon rather in the manner of Jules Verne's novel 'From the Earth to the Moon'. The subsequent decision to use Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) broke the task down into more manageable components
The N-1 Nositel (Carrier) was a Saturn V class rocket built by the Russians for their own manned lunar attempt but in four launch attempts it never managed to reach Earth orbit.
No Nuclear rocket was ever flown but there was an attempt to develop one in the 60's called KIWI but it never proceeded beyond ground tests because of safety and financial concerns.
The Neva is the river that flows through St Petersburg, Russia.

Answer: Odyssey

An oxygen cylinder used by the fuel cells to supply power to 'Odyssey' exploded when a short circuit caused a spark. The LM 'Aquarius' was hastily configured into a lifeboat that sustained Lovell, Swigert and Haise during a four day ordeal before they safely returned to earth. NASA labelled the mission 'A successful failure'.
'Orion' was the Apollo 16 LM. There were no Oceanus or Oscar Apollo spacecraft.

Answer: Pogo

Rockets have always been prone to vibration along their length called the 'Pogo'effect. During the second Saturn V test mission 'pogo' effect led to the shut down of two of the second stage engines when their plumbing lines ruptured because of excessive flexing. Fortunately the Saturn's IU detected the anomaly and programmed the remaining engines to fire longer to compensate for the loss of thrust and successfully placed the Apollo 5 payload in orbit. An extensive investigation identified the problem and a fix was implemented which dampened down the vibrations sufficiently for Saturn V to be cleared for a manned mission on its next flight.

Answer: It measured the direction of the rocket flight by sensing air pressure

The angle of the flight trajectory was sensed by the Q-ball and was displayed to the crew so that in the case of an abort they could determine which way round the CM was flying. Eight small holes were uncovered just before launch allowing the Q-ball to measure differences in air pressure so it could determine whether the rocket was flying straight and true through the atmosphere.

Answer: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR)

The elegant but risky technique of LOR was adopted when its virtues were tirelessly promoted by John Houbolt a young engineer from the Langley Research Centre. Von Braun's team at Marshall initially favoured EOR which would have required two Saturn V class launches. Houbolt's arguments won them over when it was pointed out that the mission could be accomplished with one Saturn V class launch. Once rendezvous in Earth orbit was accomplished on Project Gemini and then demonstrated in lunar orbit by Apollo 10 the way was clear to attempt a moon landing before 1970.
TLR and TER are unworkable options I made up.
Ironically EOR has been revived for NASA's next manned lunar attempt using Ares/Orion/Altair.

Answer: David Scott

At the end of the last EVA on Apollo15 David Scott graphically demonstrated Galileo's theory that objects of different mass fall at the same speed in the absence of air. When the hammer and the feather he was holding in each hand were dropped they hit the ground simultaneously to which Scott said: "Well I guess that proves that Mr Galileo was right". Appropriately the feather was from a falcon which just happened to be the name of the Apollo 15 LM.

Answer: Taurus-Littrow

Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt explored the Taurus-Littrow region for three days in December 1972 setting a new record for distance travelled using the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) and collecting more rock samples than any of the previous missions.

Answer: Ullage

These small engines are called ullage rockets after a term used by brewers to describe the empty space in a barrel not occupied by beverage. During staging the fuel tended to slosh around with the sudden loss of thrust just at the moment when a smooth flow was needed to start the engines of the next stage. Ullage rockets were not needed by the CSM when it was in zero G because fuel and oxidiser were pressure fed into the engine combustion chamber.

Answer: Wernher von Braun

The Saturn V rockets built by Wernher von Braun's team at MSFC were successfully launched thirteen times, six of them carrying crews that successfully landed on the moon.
Wernher von Braun and his team bought their rocketry skills to the US in the wake of WW II and were responsible for the development of Jupiter C which launched America's first satellite Explorer 1.

Answer: James Webb

The selection of James Webb to be NASA administrator proved to be wise choice. He had cut his teeth managing large scale government projects during Roosevelt's 'New Deal' and was no stranger to the wheeling and dealing and behind the scenes lobbying that was needed to keep the project on track.

He wisely spread lucrative contracts all around the country to guarantee continued support. After the Apollo 1 fire revealed widespread shortcomings in the design of the Command Module he vigorously defended the programme before Congressional hearings but was ultimately was forced to resign in 1968 just before the ultimate triumph of the programme he had so tirelessly promoted.

Answer: John Young

John Young was also a member of the Apollo 10 crew which flew the dress rehersal mission to clear the way for the first moon landing. He also flew the first Gemini mission with Gus Grissom and the first Shuttle mission with Robert Crippen. He flew a total of six missions on three different types of spacecraft, two on Gemini, two on Apollo, and two on the Shuttle. Wally Schirra was the only other astronaut to fly three types of spacecraft when he flew one mission each on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.
Boris Yegorov and Alexi Yeliseyev were Russian cosmonauts.

Answer: False

The 'zero' point marks different events in different rocket systems and in the case of Apollo/Saturn this statement is false. In this case the 'zero' point was when four hold down arms at the base of the launch platform release the straining Saturn once it was established that the five F-1 engines were operating at full thrust. The release was not instantaneous as a series of tapered pins were drawn through dies at the bottom of the first stage in order to control the ascent of the rocket during the first 15 cm of flight. It was once described as an 'ooze-off' rather than a 'lift-off'. The F-1 engines were ignited in a slightly staggered sequence beginning some 8.9 second before zero in order to prevent a jarring shock. The ascending Saturn then took some ten seconds to clear the tower while consuming fuel and oxidiser at a rate of fifteen tons per second.
On other rocket systems like Gemini/Titan 'zero' in the countdown marked the point when the engines were ignited.

References used for this quiz included:
'Apollo Expeditions to the Moon' Edited by Edgar M. Cortright NASA 1975
'How Apollo Flew to the Moon' W.David Woods Springer/Praxis Books 2008
Apollo' Charles Murray & Catherine Bly Cox South Mountain Books 1989